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CAN'T WANDER TODAY SO I WONDER INSTEAD ©By Russ



My movements since the auto accident are still very limited. All the little tasks I used to do remain undone, or are now being done by someone else. Hell, I even miss going to the laundromat; what a terrible thing for a man to admit. But the laundromat is a busy place... so many different kinds of people will be there at any given time. Seekers of change from the bus stop (just outside the door), and the developmentally disabled, always friendly, and always smiling. Just stopping to augment a pre-packed lunch with a cold soda from the corner machine. And then they wander out again at the same unhurried pace, going to a sheltered workshop for the remainder of the day. Sunday mornings can make this place a class room in which I practice my rusty Spanish, trying to explain the machines to someone who’s never seen one before. And then to stand red-faced listening to the easy laughter when I say it all wrong. Misery to mystery, and all points in between. It all comes through those swinging doors, lugging bags and baskets of things to be washed, or just dried. One woman comes in early, just like me, to wash her horse blankets before someone sees... as if it were a sin to wash what hasn’t been draped around a human form. And then there was that woman who came only once, but whose image still haunts my mind. So completely out of place with her too neat basket of clothes. I’m certain laundry was not her reason for being there, but no other reason comes to mind. And so she remains a mystery. Another image burned into my wondering mind: Slender, attractive, in her snug blue jeans... dark eyes flashing in some private amusement from beneath an absurd calypso straw hat. From simple to the mysterious, the exotic and mundane, it’s all interesting to me. For a guy who doesn’t care for tv or radio, this has to be the only entertainment in town ...this place where people I hardly know, or whom I’ve never seen before and most likely will never see again, insisting on knowing me by name. And then share their world with me.... whatever that world happens to be. I‘ve become an instant intimate, a long lost friend, and suddenly privy to the damnest things. From hernia to hysterectomy.. I hear it all.. and within minutes after the beginning of a wash cycle ....then concluded over growing stacks of freshly dried clothes. Sometimes I wonder if this is such an interesting place, or just another sign I’m growing old. I guess it doesn’t matter. because if going there pleases me, that’s reason enough for me. Russ





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