About a month ago our wash machine started to leak all over our floor. Awesome, right? It was right after my kids had been sick for a solid week and I hadn't done a single load of laundry. Fortunately it was a Saturday, so I packed up the laundry and James (who was feeling much better), left sick Kate at home with Christian, and made a several hour trip to the laundromat. James thought it was the greatest thing in the world. He was memorized by the machines and spent quite a while watching the clothes spin around.
I don't know why, but I kind of expected the laundromat to have an ATM. They did not have one. Nor did the three closest stores in the same strip mall. The liquor store five doors down did have an ATM, however it was one of the first ones ever made. I spent about ten minutes trying to get it to work and finally gave up and went to the 7-11 a block away that had a state-of-the-art brand new ATM machine. When I got home, I told Christian my frustrations of trying to get money for the wash machines. Kate must have been listening to the story pretty closely because the next Saturday while James was napping I asked her if she wanted to go with me to the laundromat. Her face lit up and she said, "Mom, do we get to go to the Licorice Store too??" That made me laugh pretty hard. We did not make a trip to the 'Licorice Store' this time because I was already prepared with cash, however we did have a very eventful trip.
Kate found the laundromat just as magical as James had the week before.She loved helping me stuff the clothes into the machine, putting in the quarters, and watching all the colors spin around. Once our clothes were in the wash, we headed over to the bookstore next door. After about a half an hour we headed back to the laundromat only to find that the floor was covered in at least an inch water and the owners were frantically trying to mop it up. I had one moment of panic where I thought for some reason we caused the flood, but it turned out it was someone else who didn't lock their front-loading machines. Kate thought it was hilarious that there was a lake indoors. We loaded our clothes into a dryer (and only dropped one sock and one pair of underwear into the giant puddle) and then I gave Kate a quarter to go pick something out of the quarter machines which were in the only dry part of the laundromat.
She picked out a ring. Right after she got her prize, a guy came up to me and asked me if I would like a Nashville key-chain he got from the machine. I said sure and gave it to Kate, thinking nothing of it. She and I headed back to the bookstore while our clothes dried. Finally, after everything was dry and folded, we started to pack up. Randomly, the key-chain man made his way back over and said, "This is my phone number. If I gave it to you, would you call me?" I explained I was happily married and then awkwardly made several trips to the car to load up the laundry while he watched in silence. When I got in the car, I started to laugh. Apparently giving someone a key-chain is a romantic gesture these days.
Needless to say, the next week when we got a new washer, I was quite relieved. The kids, however, were pretty disappointed that we weren't going to make any more trips to the laundromat. They still ask me on occasion if we can go back.
That is hilarious, way to go Dagny for getting a phone number haha!
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