It's All Fun and Games Until the Meth Heads Show Up - Laundry Day

When I lived in my apartment, laundry was no big deal. I walked a few yards from my bedroom to the laundry closet and did load after load easily. I actually really like folding clothes too. Turn on the TV and fold, fold, fold. Very nice. Living in a trailer park however, I'm back to carrying my clothes in laundry bag over to the laundry facility (luckily this is on-site and I don't have to drive somewhere to do laundry) and washing all my clothes in one load to save time and quarters - just like the good old days back in the dorm.
At the trailer park, the laundry facility, workout room, rec room, and "library" are all connected. Yeah, library. More on that later. When you walk in, you're in the laundry room. It's got one wall of washers, one wall of dryers, and two 8ft plastic tables pushed together in the middle. Sometimes there are chairs to sit on! Passed that is the workout room, which in all honesty, is better than the one at my old apartment. Further back from there is the library and vending machines. Off to the left of that is the rec room that's only open whenever I'm not there to see it. Thursday is ladies card game night. I haven't yet attended.
The first time I did my laundry, I went on a Tuesday evening. I had finally run out of clothes. I had been putting off going to the laundry facility as long as possible. It seemed like a big 'ol boring time. Plus, clothes don't really get that dirty, right? You can wear things more than once, right?

It being a Tuesday, I figured it would be deserted since most people do their laundry on the weekends. I was looking forward to some peace and quiet as I watched TV shows on my laptop with ear buds in and waited on my clothes to wash. I don't know about you, but where (and when) I come from, ear buds in your ears mean you aren't open to having a conversation. However, in Shady Grove, that rule does not exist. When I get to the laundry room, I get my clothes going in the washer and sit down with my laptop. There are two other people doing their clothes, but one guy has his in the dryer already. He'll be gone soon. The other person was a cute little old lady (retirement village, told ya.) who was sitting and waiting on her clothes to wash too. So I sign in to Hulu after the precursory stay-away-and-don't-talk-to-me half smile to my neighbors and settle in for some Sleepy Hollow and Big Bang Theory catching up. It's easy to avoid eye contact when you have a 17 inch screen in your face, but the chairs are not comfortable, and the machines take forever to wash your clothes. I had to get up a few times to stretch my legs, and every time someone would say something to me. I'm not an unfriendly person, but I don't really feel in my comfort zone at zero dark thirty in a new place with strangers around me. Though the man now folding his tighty whities seemed safe enough, I just felt out of place talking to him about the weather. Finally, I put my clothes in the dryer. The lady was getting her clothes out of the dryer, and the man had left. While starting my clothes in the dryer, the lady strikes up a conversation with me about what I do for a living. At the time, I was working at a horse riding center for children and adults with special needs. Turns out her granddaughter has a disability, so she was very interested in learning more. It was a nice conversation. But she soon left. Finally, I was alone with the sound of a dryer in the background and that Ichabod Crane character in my ears.

You're welcome.

Since the dryers are old, it takes two cycles to actually dry your clothes in one. I was in the laundry facility really late. The cool thing about the laundry facility is that the door automatically locks, and you have to be a resident to get the code to open the door. What's not cool is that when I walk up to the laundry facility, I usually find the door like this:

I guess the old lady left the door open when she left, or the next guests were actually residents. In any case, I'm pretty sure they were high on meth. The girl had the greasy, two-toned hair of someone who stopped caring about life, was in Spongebob pajama pants and an oversized hoodie. Her companion was a guy in sweat pants, Carhart jacket, and house slippers. They came in and looked at the washers, went to the vending machines, came back and looked at the washers some more. Since I had my ear buds in, I couldn't hear much of their conversation, but then my dryer quit and I started folding clothes with my laptop off. Turns out, THEY HAD NO IDEA HOW TO WORK THE WASHING MACHINE. This couple was in their 20s, my guess is living alone there at the trailer park, and couldn't figure out that you put the quarters in here, the water comes out there, and you need some detergent in the mix at some point. How they made it through life to that point is astounding, though when I think back, it's pretty easy to guess that maybe they never washed their clothes. Ever.
They left after finally seeing how to work the machines, presumably to get some clothes to put in them, and I soon left with my very full laundry bag of clean clothes. My RV isn't too far away from the laundry/rec/work out room/library, so I didn't have too long to think about what might jump out at me in the darkness. Meth heads in pajamas are the things of nightmares in a trailer park. But I had survived to tell the tale!
The next time I did laundry there, I went in the day time.

May you always be able to avoid conversations with strangers or at least leave before the idiots arrive,
Ray