A Stinking Saturday


     It was a fine day. I took my clothes across the road to the local laundromat. There is something cathartic about dumping a load of clothes into the big rotating drum and watching as they roll through the soapy water towards cleanliness.
     The laundromat was empty of people. I chose my favourite upright machine and put my washing inside it. I closed the big round door and I got some soap from the machine on the wall, which I poured in. I rolled my coins in and there was the comforting whooshing sound of water as it poured onto my clothes. I decided to forgo sitting on one of the metal chairs, which were bolted to the floor under the big window, as they had proved uncomfortable in the past. Instead, I went to the rear of the shop and hoisted myself up onto a Formica-coated wooden block and leaned back against the wall.
     An old man now shuffled in, pushing his battered mobile walking frame before him; it was the kind with wheels at the front. On top of it was balanced a bag, stuffed with the man’s dirty washing. The man was wearing slip-on vinyl shoes which scuffed loudly across the linoleum with each ponderous step: schiff… schaff… schiff… schaff… schiff. After an interminable journey he finally made his way all the way through the empty shop to reach the washing machine right next to where I sat. With disbelief, I watched as he then lifted the lid of the machine and begin to pull out his rank clothing and towels from his bag. I think it must be evidence of a special kind of mental illness that a perfect stranger will ignore an otherwise empty space and will willingly huddle up next to the only other person in a room – or on public transport, for that matter. As the old coot delicately fondled his clothes and dropped them into the open maw of the machine I became aware of an odour. It started as a mix of old-biscuits and wet dog, and then rose in offensive pungency to include rank, meaty body-odour; the floor of a jungle; and ancient faeces. The man muttered to himself as he fluttered his garments into the machine. I sat there, right next to him, in horror, with my hand clamped tightly over my mouth and nose. My throat had started to burn. I stole a hasty glance at the clothing as he pulled it from the bag: some of it had once been white, but was now, frankly, brown. Some of it damply glistened. He closed the lid and poked coins into the slot. The water cascaded onto the mess inside. He didn’t bother with any washing powder – clearly, soap was not on his agenda at home, either.
     I hopped down from my wooden perch and rushed to the opposite side of the shop, where the door to the street was situated. It was propped open and I took a seat next to it and gratefully breathed sweet, clean air. But the old hog now commenced his zombie-shuffle towards me, pushing his wheely-bin before him, his vinyl-clad trotters scuffling beneath him: schiff… schaff… schiff… schaff… schiff…schaff. When he finally reached the door he did a slow turn and shuffled back towards the rear of the shop again, where his machine was. Then he slowly turned again and schiff-schaffed all the way back. This routine continued, non-stop, in an endless, stenchful, figure-eight. I could bear it no longer and fled the shop into the street where I walked around the neighbourhood.
     When I returned, twenty-minutes later, the mindless, stinking schiff-schaff shuffle was still in progress. I pushed past the smelly automaton and reached my now-dormant machine. I opened its door and began transferring my snowy garments into the big drum of a dryer. As appalling luck would have it, the walking corpse’s machine also chose to finish its cycle at that moment. He slowly schiff-schaffed over to it, opened its lid and began withdrawing the still-brown, reeking items. Naturally, despite there being eight empty dryers available, he chose to deposit his filthy rags into the one next to mine. He busied himself hurling handfuls of the stuff, wetly, across the fetid room, in the direction of the dryer. Some of it went inside; most of it flopped onto the floor. I imagined greyish brown, stinking tendrils of putrefaction, creeping from it and curling about our ankles. Unable to stand any more of the horror I walked home, deciding to return in an hour for my clothes, in the hope that the coast, and the air, would be clear.

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