Laundromat by the Safeway

Laundromat By The Safeway

A Good Wash'n'Dry

Saturday eve 11.16.96, the first good rain/soaking of theyear in Northern California. I scored (by swapping out to anempty laundry basket two loads of wet laundry that had finished)for two washers at North Bay Apartment Complex but when my wash had finished, no luck there, all the dryers were busy. I had to hustle over to, and use, those at the laundromat by the Safeway.

There, only after the dryers had finished their cycles and I had removed and neatly folded the last piece of my clothing, did Inotice that, in the second one, was a now neatly cleaned anddried condom stuck to the upper right of the inner walls, round andflattened.

There were too many people in there at that hour (everyone it seemed, there was no room to maneuver in the aisles). The owner, or previous owner, of the condom was difficult, if not impossible, to determine. So many candidates, Hispanic and Caucasian, tall and short, young and middle-aged, weather-beaten and not.

Or maybe he had left, or never been there at all? It could have been in the wash of his mate, spouse or lover instead. Again so many candidates -- Caucasian and Hispanic, blond and brunette, flat-chested or large-breasted, spectacled or not, bright or dull, poorly or decently dressed.