The Laundry Room

Photo by Emmanuel Ikwuegbu on Unsplash

Living in a multi-family unit never has its perks. In my building we have a shared laundry room… There’s one washer and 2 dryers for 8 apartments to share. I’m sure the community’s brochure lists that as an amenity. It may sound chaotic for all of us to have to rearrange our schedules around each other, waiting to grasp a moment to occupy that space. But, it actually runs pretty smoothly. We’ve all adopted the “get in and get out” method to get the job done, and this system has worked well for us, until recently…

A couple weeks ago, I started noticing loads that would sit in the dryer all day. Since this never happens, the dispatcher in me would immediately jump to someone’s tragic demise to explain the load left behind. Thank God the pisces in me likes to mind her own business and move along. What started as a minor inconvenience, eventually tumbled into a barricade situation, with the entire room taken over by one tenant. For 3 days, we were at a stalemate… with no one being able to do laundry without moving all of this person’s belongings into the hallway. While I was slightly annoyed each time, it wasn’t a big deal for me to go to a nearby laundromat instead. Unfortunately, this wasn’t as simple of a solution for some of my neighbors.

On day 3 of this ridiculous debacle, I was woken up after a long shift by an overly dramatic door slam and yelling from my upstairs neighbor. There’s a young couple who occupies that unit, and their affinity for loud, childlike tantrums is probably what brought them together. I imagine they were both in a bar on the night they met, he’s screaming at a missed play from a game, and she’s flipping tables over a forgotten side of ranch….they lock eyes and the rest is history (they were also both wearing roller blades, because nothing else explains the frequent rolling across my ceiling). While I understand her frustration over all of our predicament, her reaction to it was equally annoying. At this moment, I was invested in putting an end to this drama, because NOONE messes with my sleep!

Because of my proximity to the laundry room, I’ve known the identity of the culprit from the start. I suppose I never cared enough to address it until my sleep was interrupted. The offender is a young mother with a toddler, who recently moved into our building. I ran into her in the hallway shortly after my upstairs neighbor had her outburst, and politely asked her to turn over her laundry more frequently. She explained that she had been oversleeping and was very apologetic and receptive. She even left a note apologizing to the rest of the building for the inconvenience she caused.

My brief interaction with her took me back to when my daughter was that age. It was hard….I was constantly cleaning, disheveled, and chasing down every nap like it was my last. I saw a lot of the younger me in her. I wish I could have channeled my best Tab Brown and reached out and hugged her and told her how everything would be just fine. I would’ve told her how amazing she’s doing even though it feels like she’s failing, and to remember to give herself some grace. Lastly I would’ve told her not to lose sight of herself; it’s not selfish to preserve your own needs while you care for your child. And through our embrace, maybe we could have both found solace. A stupid conversation over sharing space in a laundry room, in turn healed our broken spirits. Instead, we kindly parted ways, and the laundry room drama was over. And as I closed my apartment door behind me, my eyes flooded with tears.