When I was a fourth grader, in a world blissfully unaware of cable TV’s endless channels but definitely post-dinosaur excitement, our teacher, in a moment of pedagogical whimsy, tasked us with envisioning our dream jobs. To my ten-year-old self, this exercise reeked of time-wasting potential, yet faced with the grim alternatives of eraser clapping or wrestling with the mysterious ditto machine, I begrudgingly perched at my typewriter (for the millennials in the room, imagine a laptop tragically devoid of a screen) and set my young mind to work.
And what brilliant career path did my youthful brain conjure?
“When I grow up,” I painstakingly typed, “I want to be a laundry lady. My dream is to wash other people’s dirty clothes, tumble them dry, and fold them into neat, hospital-cornered perfection.”
Let me offer some context for this… unusual aspiration. As an only child with two working parents, my childhood was often spent navigating the fantastical landscapes of my imagination.
One day, I was the Queen of Sheba, holding court in my backyard. The next, I transformed into Lesley of the Laundromat, engaging in lively conversations with imaginary clientele, brewing phantom pots of coffee, and generously (perhaps too generously) feeding quarters into the detergent dispenser of my mother’s washing machine – an act that resulted in a rather substantial repair bill and, I suspect, some quiet parental contemplation about their daughter’s grip on reality.
Lesley’s Laundromat, in my elaborate daydreams, was a full-service establishment, even offering dry cleaning. My version of this sophisticated service involved draping my mother’s professional suits in the shower, hoping the steam would work some magic. Let me assure you, her meticulously tailored pinstripe blazers, complete with formidable shoulder pads, had never experienced such intense hydration.
The wrinkle in my dream job assignment appeared when we were instructed to interview a professional in our chosen field. Our quaint town, charming as it was, was somewhat professionally limited (picture a general store that doubled as a questionable movie rental spot and a local vet whose patients were primarily farm animals). My pursuit of a laundry lady interview hit a wall, much like those quarters stuck in the detergent receptacle, forcing me to reluctantly pivot to a more… conventional career aspiration for the sake of the assignment.
Fast forward three decades or so, and here I stand, a grown woman, in the brightly lit, slightly humid expanse of the Wilton Laundromat. And I’m grappling with a profound question, one that echoes through the rows of whirring machines: what on earth was ten-year-old me thinking? What romanticized vision of laundry did I conjure in my youthful mind, perhaps set to the tune of “You Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record)”, blissfully unaware of the repetitive cycles and sheer volume of soiled socks that awaited?
This, I’ve discovered, is not a dream job. There’s not a whisper of romance in the air, unless you find a certain allure in the scent of industrial-strength detergent. And honestly, anyone who dedicates their days to washing, drying, and folding the mountains of other people’s laundry, achieving those mythical hospital corners, deserves, if not the royal treatment afforded to the Queen of Sheba, then at the very least, a genuinely good cup of coffee.
“I’m making a Starbucks run,” I announce to ‘Laura’ (not her real name, but let’s protect the innocent) of the Wilton Laundromat, raising my voice over the rhythmic rumble of dryers. “Can I bring you back anything?”
Because no one, especially not a laundry professional, should be expected to function in a decaffeinated state. And for all you non-coffee drinkers out there, take note: you could be accomplishing tasks with twice the speed and half the efficiency of my childhood typewriter if you’d just abandon your herbal tea heroism and embrace the glorious, jittery world of caffeine addiction. Join the rest of us!
And no, I don’t have any issues. Just eight overflowing loads of laundry commandeering four extra-large machines on this perfectly ordinary Tuesday afternoon/evening. It’s all perfectly normal.
This is where I find myself, at this juncture. Perhaps you’ve been here too, not necessarily in a laundromat, but in that metaphorical space in life where you contemplate surrendering to the overwhelming tide of… well, laundry. Or at least giving up on your home washing machine, the one that stubbornly refuses to produce suds or fill with more than a thimbleful of water, leaving your clothes feeling like they’ve been marinating in salad dressing. And then, in a moment of misguided optimism, you transfer the questionable load to the dryer, reasoning, it surely can’t get any worse, right? Oh, how wrong you can be. Because your dryer, in a feat of rebellious appliance behavior, has seemingly forgotten the existence of a ‘stop’ button. Unless you possess the foresight to intervene, remembering that you are, in fact, drying a load of delicates, the machine will cheerfully tumble on for a solid sixteen hours, leaving you to question whether those shrunken remnants were indeed your underwear or if you’ve inexplicably gained fifteen pounds since breakfast. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
In our household, everything, appliances included, operates with flawless precision, and we remain, as always, supremely satisfied customers/renters. (That’s the narrative I’m supposed to maintain, isn’t it?)
Hence, my current laundromat pilgrimage. There are, admittedly, worse fates. Like witnessing your two-year-old unleash what my husband and I have affectionately termed ‘the silent tantrum,’ a performance art piece involving lying face down on the floor and dramatically rolling across the living room in silent protest against being denied a third serving of icescreamwithsprinklesandeminemies. Or enduring the sonic assault of “Low” by T-Pain and Flo Rida on repeat until, in a moment of sheer desperation, I contemplated liberating Alexa from her countertop perch and launching her into the washing machine on the salad dressing cycle. Because, newsflash: this parenting gig is also a hard job, maybe even harder than being a laundry lady, and definitely harder than dealing with the earworm of “You Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record)” stuck in your head on repeat.
Okay, fine. I didn’t actually do it – but the impulse was undeniably there. And now, the scent of hot water mingling with Tide is akin to a shot of metaphorical Bourbon for me, a brief, fragrant escape from the ongoing saga of parenting. It’s an escape from the hours spent questioning my life choices, particularly the decision to purchase a Lululemon crop top in a delicate shade of lavender for my eleven-year-old, only to have her wear it under a baggy sweatshirt, revealing what I am confident resembles a scene from an Aerosmith video by the time that certain monthly event rolls around.
Or have you ever bravely ventured to the dentist with a two-year-old? Let’s just say, there are experiences you simply don’t fully recover from. It’s a minor miracle the dental hygienist still possesses all her teeth, because, let me tell you, my son has a surprisingly powerful punch… (see: toddlers you definitely don’t want to encounter in a poorly lit alley).
I return to the Wilton Laundromat, Starbucks coffee in hand, deliver Laura her caffeine fix, and trudge homeward, burdened by eighty pounds of freshly laundered clothes. Only to be greeted by a barrage of frantic missed voicemails, each more urgent than the last.
“Um, hello??? Where are you??? I’m literally searching everywhere for my Lululemon top and it’s vanished… I need it, like, now… as in, five minutes ago…”
“Do you think this is some kind of joke? I seriously need it, and Dad mentioned you went to the laundromat? Why would you even do that? Is that even a real place? I think he’s messing with me. Call me back immediately!”
“Mom… if you have my Lululemon top at that laundry place, I’m seriously going to lose it because I have absolutely nothing else that even remotely coordinates with my Lululemon shorts. And please, for the love of fashion, don’t suggest I ‘just wear a t-shirt,’ because I cannot simply pair any t-shirt with these shorts. I require a very specific top… that top… the Lululemon one…”
The very same Lululemon top upon which she managed to spill the equivalent of an entire jar of pasta sauce just last week. She’s eleven, living her best Aerosmith music video life. These things happen. And really, at the end of the day, it all evens out in the wash, doesn’t it? Especially at the laundromat, where life, much like a washing machine, keeps spinning you right round.
Columnist Lesley Kirschner spent her formative years in quiet, wooded solitude, devoid of siblings. Consequently, her hobbies naturally gravitated towards reading, writing, and engaging in animated conversations with inanimate objects. She also dedicated a significant portion of her childhood to providing voice-overs for her dolls and indulging in excessive daytime television consumption – primarily channel 3, occasionally channel 8, weather permitting and antenna cooperation guaranteed. She attended school, graduated from a decidedly unremarkable college of no particular note, and relocated to Wilton with her husband, Ambler Farm‘s Farmer Jonathan, and their (rapidly multiplying) three children nearly a decade ago. While she may not have discovered her true calling in life, with the possible exception of doll voice-overs, which, in retrospect, were unsettlingly convincing, she finds contentment in writing and expresses gratitude for the supportive community she’s found on Facebook’s Buy Nothing Wilton. Lesley acknowledges that while this is all mildly thrilling, she’s unlikely to win a Pulitzer, so she’ll conclude here and embrace the quiet. She’s had ample practice.
