Communal Laundry

I think the neighbors know it's me who fills the washing machine with mud each Thursday night. I got caught last week. It was our muddiest practice yet and Landis and I ended the whole thing with a few lovely belly slides through the mud, me with my arms tucked in and head held high like a seal. Every single thing I had on my body was disgusting, and it was cold out so there were lots of things.

As I often do, I tried to rinse everything in the laundry sink before washing. This time, the drain was clogged before I got through one cleat. Soon, I was up to my elbows in brown water with pieces of clover floating around me. I just gave up and threw it all in the washer, ran it through twice, and tried to sneak out of the laundry room but GOT CAUGHT! Late at night, I figured I was safe from the other tenants. But no, I had to pretend I was just going upstairs for some Drano and the plunger and then I had to offer up four replacement quarters to Suzanne when she had to run the washer empty to rinse it out. As if I wanted to spend twenty minutes plunging a sink drain!

The moment I felt myself having those thoughts, I felt so elitist and pathetic. Why the hell shouldn't I plunge my mud mess? I guess maybe because I rent? When Corey and I had our own, quarter-free washing machine in Jersey I would just run it a few times and be done with it, clean my own mess because I knew there was nobody else to do it. I've become lazy and mean since moving into a multi-unit building. I am a sinner. I leave rugby mess for others to deal with and I do it DELIBERATELY.

I think I take sick pleasure in being irresponsible for a second, just one second, each week. I like thinking someone else out there has to be the grown-up and I leave my mud behind so I can sit on the sofa and drink beer. Or maybe I'm just an asshole.

For some reason, I find it incredibly cute that Corey was that someone last night. He stayed up until 4am doing laundry. This is because he waits to do laundry until there isn't another possible thing from eighth grade he could wear and has 10+ loads. He becomes a machine, folding his items more carefully than I used to fold the kids' tees at K-mart. I wake up to stations spaced around the apartment with neatly folded piles of things, faintly ringed with silty rings from the scuz I leave behind from practice gear.