Laundry Day

We mean well. We begin the weekend with the best of intentions to do our laundry first thing. Procrastination usually gets the better of us. Going to the laundromat is mine and Jeff’s least favorite chore of the week. One would not normally consider it such an obstacle; we surely did not realize the challenge.

The laundromat brings out the best and worst in us as a couple. I remember entering the laundromat with Jeff at my side for the first time. My immediate thought was, “How in the world would someone who is completely blind do this alone?” I know they do it every day. I simply do not know how. All I could see were random rolling baskets, oddly-arranged seating, and banks of washing machines obstructing the way. I do that now; I walk into a space assessing the literal stumbling blocks.

Eventually we developed a rhythm. Jeff mans the quarters and feeds the machines while I pour the detergent and then we both load the clothes. We take full advantage of those rolling baskets; they become our connection as I steer us and our clothes to the washers, the dryers, the seats, and back again. We hang all of our shirts and pants on-site and dump the underwear and pajamas in the laundry bags to fold at home. The whole procedure takes about three hours on a good day. It sounds so simple that I am shaking my head in disbelief even as I read this. Between paper and practice, the difference is vast. So much can happen to throw off this rhythm that every laundry day is a crap shoot. The seating will be taken. The dryers will be full. Many of the machines will be out of order. The coin machine hates our well-weathered bills. These same struggles everyone faces at the laundromat.

We have encountered several instances of rudeness which I found surprising for a small town. One woman accused us of stealing because we had to move her purse off of the washing machine so we could unload our clothes. Another arrived in her Lexus SUV and – upon seeing an employee of her husband’s who was also doing his laundry then – remarked how she had a washer and dryer at home but could not bring herself to wash her husband’s field clothes that were soiled with cattle fur and feces in the washer and dryer where she does their family laundry. So you can wash them where we do our family laundry? I wanted to ask. Alternately, for every act of rudeness I can say there have been twice as many kindnesses as well. People who open the doors for us, people who guide Jeff when I am unavailable: I thank God for you every day.

Our biggest challenges, though, are internal. We both have spacey days when we forget how to put one foot in front of the other. Jeff gets easily disoriented. I get easily frustrated. Manual labor wears us out! Yet we cannot help but wonder how many who are disabled can do laundry at all. Disability stipends are not enough to pay to have their laundry done for them. We know this; we have priced it. (In our moments of weakness we dream about it.)

Still, in all of this, when he could easily shirk the job altogether, Jeff faithfully goes with me to do the laundry every week. He refuses to shove it off onto my shoulders. This is why this team works. I never thought of myself as a “team player”. In my mind that image conjures up the high school athlete who still wears his football jersey on the weekends. I am rarely as optimistic and enthusiastic. However, when my fellow team member is Jeff and teamwork is this crucial, I can only conclude it would lessen the loner in anyone. Jeff and I navigate the world practically joined at the hip because we have to, but I am happy to say we want it no other way. We learned early the difficulty of closing the physical distance when emotional distance separates us.

Another confession? We refuse to iron. We avoid it with everything in us. In desperation I steam wrinkles out, but most often I spray it with wrinkle releaser and pray when people see us they think the wrinkles in our clothes happened while we were in the car.

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