When I was younger I had an intense problem with how the word 'laundry' mat was spelled. My Mom is mostly to blame, though not really in a bad way. But in being a true purveyor of the Southern accent Mom pronounced (and still does) 'laundry' as 'landry', heavy on the helping of the sharp A. I think the word 'laundry' was one of my first really problems with the English language, because the 'u' in it seemed about as useful as well, something not useful which I can't really think of right now. But really, I kid you not, I didn't come to understand the concept of laundry and it's correct spelling until I was in middle school. I was a slow kid.
But really when I was younger laundry mats were a place I really enjoyed. we never had a lot of money and buying a washer and dryer were never really a thing that could happen.There was the loading of coins into the little slots, sitting in perfect lines like little soldiers, then pushed in with what always felt like the jolting motion. Mom always let me pour the cleaning detergent in, and I was just always fascinated by the colors they came in. The lilacs and bright blues. And I would watch other people too, pouring theirs in. When I was younger, I think, they were like potions and the cleaning was a spell we were creating. even to this day I love laundry detergents and all their colors, I'm currently using a bright mint green one. But back in the past. There was the sitting after that, the times where we waited. Sometimes I would put my hand or head against the white metal of the washer and here the vibrations bouncing back and forth in my brain. Like a little ping pong match. But it was gone as soon as I left and I was sad. But I never stayed sad for long back then. There were other things to do too, during the waiting. Like playing on the pinball machine or sitting on the weird brick wall thing and reading. I always took full advantage of these both.
One time this man came in and he had no laundry to do but he kept giving me and these and two other kids rows and rows of quarters to play the pinball machine. and he just watched us, encouraging us to play and giving us tips to play. The things is, this man was quite scruffy and skinny, he looked like he hadn't eaten a proper meal in weeks. But we were children and we didn't understand that he was probably giving us the only money he had. But we played, we laughed, and he laughed too. And when he ran out of quarters he started crying. It was really terrifying to me because it was the first time in my life I had ever seen a grown man cry (I was around six or seven then). None of knew what to do so we just kind of stared around awkwardly, trying not to look at the crying man in front of us. And then he apologized, still crying, and ran around. I am telling this story because I only just remembered this the other day. There are a lot of things from my childhood that I am not sure are real. You see, it's because I think I made up memories in my childhood, because I was so caught up in a lot of my fantasy that I convinced myself it was real. So sometimes I have to check reality, but this memory, it's true. Or at least certified true by my mother who witnessed a good portion of the event. And ever since I've been wondering who that man was and why he did that for us. And this is what I've decided, something I'm going to instill in the memory. Because there are a lot of things that happened in my childhood that I have yet to understand, so I'm just going to make somethings up for them to make sense. Does that make sense? Probably not. But it's just this. I can imagine this, I can imagine this man being poor (probably homeless) and very, very lonely. And then he looks in through the glass windows of the laundry mat seeing three kids looking down because their parents can't afford to give them money for the pinball machine. And so he takes the few dollars he has left to his name and trades them in for quarters. And he gives them to us, watching us play and never playing himself. Because it's enough for him, enough for him to see the delight on our faces and the hear the happiness of our laughter. It's a wonderful thing, to make another human being happy, and when you're lonely, it makes you not feel so lonely anymore. I really hope we helped that man that day.
Fin.
-Keshia
*reading break*
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