Oh I guess what pissed me off the most is that she pretended she wasn't doing what she was obviously doing until I confronted her about it twice.

Occasionally a lady we like to call the Laundry Nazi shows up at our local laundromat. She takes all the carts, hangs her clothes all over them, monopolizes several tables and then she likes to go around and critique your laundry techniques. One time she opened my running washing machine to tell me that I had too many clothes in there. That was so helpful - almost as helpful as the time she took it upon herself to complain about the way I was sorting my clothes. Now, if I pull up and see her there I flee.

This is why I am so, so dedicated to having laundry facilities within my apartments. There are 3 things I try not to compromise on:

1. gas range
2. full bathtub
3. washer/dryer

I actually don't mind going to the laundromat - I even prefer it. That way, I can use 4 machines at the same time and get the entire thing over and done with in 2 hours or so, as opposed to having to do laundry every. single. damn. day.

I don't have any laundry stories because I hate doing laundry. Thus, my bedroom closet is, on one side, floor-to-ceiling dirty clothes. Meaning that as soon as I run out of underwarez, I'm gonna have to take a couple of days off. Sigh.

I send my laundry out. Thank goodness for the conveniences of city living.

How much does that cost, TPS?

Hmmm, last time I think I got ~ 25 lbs for $20.

Totally worth it- like I have time to go to the laundromat (our building has no laundry facilities).

Ahh, the launderette. There's something about it which brings out the rich tapestry of human life. I'll skip over the intricacies of the "being verbally attacked for looking Jewish by an Islamic drug dealer who was off his tits on WKD" story, and concentrate on telling y'all about the pensioner who indicated her dislike of the launderette owner using nothing but the power of dance.

So I'm in the launderette quite early, and one of the machines eats my £1.40. As a consequence, the disturbance this causes is enough to bring out the old british blitz spirit, so where we were previously studiously ignoring each other, we start talking instead. A woman by the driers tells me that she put a quid in one of the driers and that didn't work, and another woman said that the place always went to the dogs when the owners husband went on business to Algeria, and yet another woman conveyed the gossip that the launderette was going to lose business from a local popular pizza place because once they couldn't be bothered to pick up the tableclothes, and you know what health and safety are like, etc, etc.

At this point, a tiny and feeble old lady started prancing around the place pointing at machines. "This one didn't work last week.", twirl, point; "This has been broken for six months", spin twice, point. "And this", she said pointing repeatedly at a washer with her toe in a ballet like movement "This one hasn't even got a door."

I'd try and explain it better, but it was one of the weirdest "ordinary" things I have ever seen.

Wait...you pretend everyone's invisible up North too? I've been led to believe that it's only in London where people think you're weird if you so much as look up from your feet. The media has LIED to me!

Damn.

I was told to keep that a secret.

Really. It's only New York where that happens, flopsy. Whatever else you have experienced elsewhere has been a lie.

There is a difference between the north and south, but I'm not sure what it is. It's too easy to fall into stereotyping, though maybe it's something to do with perceived reasons for being quiet. Northern men are supposedly more taciturn, whereas in the south, everyone's too busy. As I said - stereotypes.

I think people like to talk to each other, but they're too polite. I've seen the no-one talking and the a minor incident escalating into a group chattering away thing several times. I'm not travelled enough to know if that's a northern, english or just human thing. It's probably the latter, but I've been indoctrinated with the whole God's own County propaganda since I was a bairn.

On a final note, it's sometimes impossible not to be talked to at the bus stop. Old ladies have a lot to answer for.

Old ladies cut in front of me in line, then take a half-hour counting out their change to pay up, and jam their shopping carts against my ass in line behind me when I strategically lean over to peruse something on the impulse-buy rack thereby effectively cutting off the 5-inch slideby space they like to use to charge ahead of everybody.

Kill the old ladies.

oops. That wasn't a laundry story.

Well, we used to do our laundry at a place that was run by a drag queen... but not a typical drag queen. This one was way into the 50s housewife look. That was fun. And it was nice and clean and bright and cheery. With plants. And you could hang out and do the stuff yourself, or drop it off and pay something really reasonable for her to do it. Best laundromat ever.

I have a washer and dryer in my place-- BUT they're the smallest ASKOS that take five hours to do a load of clothes and were only meant for someone who just washes their underwear.

Once I did laundry with a girlfrend of a friend. She was my mate too, mind you, but I knew her through him. We've waited for it all to dry at the café next door and now we sort stuff into different bags straigh from the cart.

We both reach into the cart at the same time, we both lock onto a black & lacy pushup bra. We pull it out and for a moment we're caught with the bra hanging between us, a bit like the spagetti scene in lady and the tramp.

I insist that it's my bra, she explains that our friend gave it to her, and it's her bra. I twist the bra so that I can see the label and read out a genuine bought-in-sweden, Swedish brand. It's my bra. I figure out that when my friend babysat my cat during the summer months (two months rent free stay in NYC in my apartment), he might have given it to her. Or she simply stayed over night every night, and at some point started borrowing my clothes. In any case, I did not want it back.

I went home and went through my closet and found lots of clothes missing. I never spoke to those guys again.

Well I don't have a customer side story but I've got several from my days as a major appliance tech. I had deals with several of the medium size apartment buildings in town, say 30-40 units each. The deal was I'd supply the coin op laundry machines including service as needed; the apartment building supplied water/electricity/space; and we split the take 50/50.

Anyways this one tenant was driving the owner, and therefor me, crazy with calls complaining about long dry times. I was out at least a half a dozen times running tests each time turning up nothing. Finally I managed to drop by to collect the weekly take when the problem tenant was doing her laundry.

I knew she was the problem tenant because she had one foot on each side of the dryer openning thru which a jean pant leg extended. She had a hold of the pant leg with both hands and was tugging with all her might trying to get the now only medium damp jeans out of the dryer. Apparently she was completely filling the drum of the dryer with wet laundry. After about 12 dry cycles the clothes had dried out a bit and expanded slightly, making them just about impossible to remove. Of course even the stuff right at the edge wasn't dry because there was no air flow.