Friday, October 20, 2006 7:17 p.m.
Like most college students, Sidney usually dreaded having to perform the mundane task of doing his laundry. Nonetheless, it wasn't like he was particularly meticulous in his sorting. T-shirts would come out bone-dry and wrinkled while jeans would come out mildly soggy and, well, wrinkled. Once all of his socks had turned pink when he had made the mistake of tossing in a new sweater his Aunt Tilda had made for him last Christmas. Still, he liked to think that she would have been glad to know that he had worn it enough times to warrant washing.
Unlike his roommate Mark, Sidney allowed the pile of laundry to grow to gargantuan proportions in his closet, contaminating his clothes as opposed to Mark's method of letting the monstrosity explode all over the room and allowing it to fester on top of whatever it touched. One time, Sidney noticed a rather foul stench coming from his CPU while drafting on his computer. At first he had wondered if he accidentally spilled some food of it. As he shuffled the gadget out from under his desk, he discovered a pair of briefs which had managed to wander from Mark's side of the room to beneath Sidney's desk. For one thing, Sidney recognized immediately that they did not belong to him since he was a strictly boxers-only sort of guy. Unclean was a term commonly attributed to lepers in the Middle Ages. Unclean would barely begin to describe the horrors unleashed upon Sidney's discovery.
Yet he would have almost been happy to do Mark's wash with his own if it meant being able to return to the Phoenix Grill and Laundromat. On second thought, the idea of something as disgusting as Mark's boxers mingling in the wash with his own was probably enough to dissuade Sidney. It wasn't that Sidney was homophobic on a laundry-level. If anything, he was germo-herpegonosyphilo-phobic. He really had no idea where Mark went late at night. Not to mention the smell coming from those briefs that day was enough to put Sidney off of eating for almost a week. The fact that it was getting to be the weeks before fall break, "aka cafeteria leftover food recycling weeks" probably didn't help either.
Nonetheless, these were the joys of going to a small state school. Where and how someone did their laundry was worth much pondering, at least now it was. Nevermind that Sidney had another midterm coming up, going to the Phoenix Grill and Laundromat was part of his truly higher education, the one you can't just get from reading books and filling out little bubbles with a number two pencil. An unsolved mystery, an intriguing proprietor full of other people's stories; there was no end to what Sidney could have learned in that place.
Usually Sidney liked to take advantage of his free student bus pass and cruise around the town to see if there was some corner he hadn't found yet. Now his quest of sorts only reminded him all too well as to how unreliable the public transportation system was. It was late in arriving to his dorm by a good three minutes, drove five miles under the speed limit, and made unnecessary stops waiting for people who for all likelihood seemed like they would never get on the bus. Sidney sort of found that amusing. Perhaps the bus was stopping for various ghosts around the town and dropping them off at the various places where they had spent their lives. Maybe there was someone else on the bus with him going off to do their laundry.
Sure, there was his life story, but even then, that was much too long and he himself hadn't actually been able to sort any meaning or overall lesson from it yet. There was always the story of how he first came to the Phoenix Theater. Then again, the owner already knew the last half of the story. A terrifying thought occurred to Sidney; perhaps his story, whichever one he chose to tell, was uninteresting and not worth telling. He was almost certain that the owner had experienced many a boring story in his time there. Still, like any good historian, he probably recorded it for posterity in his book beneath the counter.
The idea reminded him of "walls of fame" he had seen on restaurant walls where autographed pictures of famous people hung, slightly askew for a bit more homey feeling. Yet to Sidney, this little book seemed all the more meaningful even if "a picture is worth a thousand words." In this case, each set of a thousand words or more were about "real" everyday people. Maybe even the most mundane scenarios were worth saving to someone. After all, this idea of owning a restaurant and laundromat just to collect the stories of other people was probably an everyday thing for the owner, but to Sidney, it was something amazing, enlightening.
Sidney's face fell when he saw the line at the snack counter. Each and every one of them were hipsters. Still, it wasn't like an old prejudice could taint this newfound feeling of discovery. If they were meant to be part of this re-discovered world, then so be it, right? At the same time, Sidney couldn't help but feel a slight pang of jealousy when he saw the owner pull the pen and notebook from under the desk and start taking notes as the guy up front told his story.
Swinging his laundry bag off his shoulder in front of a washer, Sidney figured he could at least accomplish one objective of his mission here even if he couldn't find the girl or talk to the man. For a moment, he couldn't figure out why he couldn't recognize some of the items in his bag. A vague nausea crept over him as he realized that somehow Mark's infected garments had taken a life of their own and staked their claim on his pile. Sidney grimaced and shoved the entire load into the darkness, looking around to make sure that he wasn't seen with the food-soiled t-shirt reduced to rags or the biohazardous briefs. He added a bit more detergent than usual for good measure at the risk of it overflowing in a soapy mess.
As he shut the door, he jumped backwards as if to cover the incriminating garments. To his horror, he saw a set of dark eyes staring at him in disbelief. Thin fingers contrasted by knobby knuckles clasped around a wooden broom handle. He turned around in the hopes that once he faced her again, she wouldn't disappear. Of all times, the one time he stopped looking, Sidney was finally able to find her. It almost reminded him of the time he lost his dorm keys and then found them by just giving up and sitting on the lounge couch, only to hear the jingling of his keyring in the couch cushions. It's always when you stop looking for someone or something, they find you. Or more accurately, she had found him...with his roommate's filthy undergarments plastered against the glass washer door for the world to see.
When he slowly turned around with the terror that she might have seen the soiled briefs, Sidney met her eyes again to see that she was laughing. Not only had she not disappeared, she was almost glad to see him. Either that, or she was making fun of him and what she had perceived to be his complete lack of decent hygeine.
"Are you ok?" The girl leaned a bit harder onto her broom. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
As if reasserting that yes, he was taller than her, Sidney stood up straight. "You could say that. Do you remember me?"
"Hard to say, a lot of people come through here." Her eyes lit up. "Are you here for the show?"
Maybe she was talking about the occasional Bollywood projected on the screen once the curtains drew back. "Not really. I just wanted to talk to your father."
For a moment, the girl looked like she had been hit by a bus, or like Sidney had slapped her in the face. "What do you know about my father?"
"You know, the owner?" Sidney said cautiously. Apparently he had touched a nerve. Granted, he expected a teenage girl to have issues with her family, but this seemed a bit too far.
"Oh, Lester?" The girl laughed from deep within her stomach. "He's not my father. He just randomly hired me one day when I was running by."
"Funny, that guy doesn't look like a Lester..." Now Sidney was completely confused.
"Well then, if you're so smart at choosing names, what's mine?" The girl poked him with her finger. It sort of hurt, but was more unexpected than anything else.
"I couldn't say..." Things definitely were getting to be on the strange side. At the very least, it could make for an interesting story if there was some sort of lesson in it.
"Well, there you go." She said, smiling with satisfaction. "You can't presume anything about anyone, whether it's their name or who their father is."
Was this the lesson he was supposed to learn? For a solid moment, all he could do was stare blankly at her.
"Don't worry, I was just kidding." She laughed again. "The last thing I wanted to do was get all preachy to a complete stranger. I'm Mira."
"Oh." For a moment, Sidney couldn't understand why the girl was stretching her hand to him. It wasn't like he needed to be helped up. "I'm Sidney."
"Nice meeting you Sidney." She shook his hand and immediately resumed pushing the broom rhythmically. "If you'll excuse me, I better get this done before the show starts."
Almost completely satisfied, Sidney sank onto the couch staring at the curtained stage around the corner of the row of machines. Occasionally glancing at the washing machine, he found that the offending pair of briefs had retreated further into the dark. Sidney shuddered upon coming to the realization that he had shaken Mira's hand after touching Mark's disgusting briefs and not washing his hands. He went back out into the lobby to look for a bathroom and washed his hands. For whatever reason, he did it in a hurry so he could get back in time for the movie to start. It wasn't that he was particularly interested in Indian cinema, but he figured a new experience now and again would be nice, especially if he could get a story out of it.
Yet when he got back, even if it took a few minutes to find the bathroom and get back to where he was earlier in the theater, the curtains had not drawn back to reveal a silver screen nor had the house lights gone dimmer than before. There was no show. Somewhat disappointed, Sidney returned to the front counter to find that at least the line had dissipated.
"Your dau- I mean Mira is quite an odd girl, funny though." Even though Sidney had caught himself, the man looked at him like he was from Mars. "First she tells me that your name is Lester. I mean, if it is, that's cool, but I didn't think you looked like a Lester. Then she tells me that she's cleaning up before the show. There's no show, right?"
The wrinkles on the man's brow loosened as he smiled placidly. "Sounds to me like you have quite a story to tell."
"Sure thing." Sidney took out ten dollars from his pocket and slid it across the glass counter. "I'll have an idli sambhar. The rest is to cover the one from last week."
Unlike his roommate Mark, Sidney allowed the pile of laundry to grow to gargantuan proportions in his closet, contaminating his clothes as opposed to Mark's method of letting the monstrosity explode all over the room and allowing it to fester on top of whatever it touched. One time, Sidney noticed a rather foul stench coming from his CPU while drafting on his computer. At first he had wondered if he accidentally spilled some food of it. As he shuffled the gadget out from under his desk, he discovered a pair of briefs which had managed to wander from Mark's side of the room to beneath Sidney's desk. For one thing, Sidney recognized immediately that they did not belong to him since he was a strictly boxers-only sort of guy. Unclean was a term commonly attributed to lepers in the Middle Ages. Unclean would barely begin to describe the horrors unleashed upon Sidney's discovery.
Yet he would have almost been happy to do Mark's wash with his own if it meant being able to return to the Phoenix Grill and Laundromat. On second thought, the idea of something as disgusting as Mark's boxers mingling in the wash with his own was probably enough to dissuade Sidney. It wasn't that Sidney was homophobic on a laundry-level. If anything, he was germo-herpegonosyphilo-phobic. He really had no idea where Mark went late at night. Not to mention the smell coming from those briefs that day was enough to put Sidney off of eating for almost a week. The fact that it was getting to be the weeks before fall break, "aka cafeteria leftover food recycling weeks" probably didn't help either.
Nonetheless, these were the joys of going to a small state school. Where and how someone did their laundry was worth much pondering, at least now it was. Nevermind that Sidney had another midterm coming up, going to the Phoenix Grill and Laundromat was part of his truly higher education, the one you can't just get from reading books and filling out little bubbles with a number two pencil. An unsolved mystery, an intriguing proprietor full of other people's stories; there was no end to what Sidney could have learned in that place.
Usually Sidney liked to take advantage of his free student bus pass and cruise around the town to see if there was some corner he hadn't found yet. Now his quest of sorts only reminded him all too well as to how unreliable the public transportation system was. It was late in arriving to his dorm by a good three minutes, drove five miles under the speed limit, and made unnecessary stops waiting for people who for all likelihood seemed like they would never get on the bus. Sidney sort of found that amusing. Perhaps the bus was stopping for various ghosts around the town and dropping them off at the various places where they had spent their lives. Maybe there was someone else on the bus with him going off to do their laundry.
Once the bus stopped a half block away,
It wasn't like Sidney was nosy or anything. He was starting to understand what the man at the counter was getting at when he said that everyone had a story other people could learn from. For a moment, Sidney paused, his tennis shoes squeaking against the tile floor. People turned around to stare at him momentarily before returning to their meals.
Sidney didn't know what his story was.Sure, there was his life story, but even then, that was much too long and he himself hadn't actually been able to sort any meaning or overall lesson from it yet. There was always the story of how he first came to the Phoenix Theater. Then again, the owner already knew the last half of the story. A terrifying thought occurred to Sidney; perhaps his story, whichever one he chose to tell, was uninteresting and not worth telling. He was almost certain that the owner had experienced many a boring story in his time there. Still, like any good historian, he probably recorded it for posterity in his book beneath the counter.
The idea reminded him of "walls of fame" he had seen on restaurant walls where autographed pictures of famous people hung, slightly askew for a bit more homey feeling. Yet to Sidney, this little book seemed all the more meaningful even if "a picture is worth a thousand words." In this case, each set of a thousand words or more were about "real" everyday people. Maybe even the most mundane scenarios were worth saving to someone. After all, this idea of owning a restaurant and laundromat just to collect the stories of other people was probably an everyday thing for the owner, but to Sidney, it was something amazing, enlightening.
Sidney's face fell when he saw the line at the snack counter. Each and every one of them were hipsters. Still, it wasn't like an old prejudice could taint this newfound feeling of discovery. If they were meant to be part of this re-discovered world, then so be it, right? At the same time, Sidney couldn't help but feel a slight pang of jealousy when he saw the owner pull the pen and notebook from under the desk and start taking notes as the guy up front told his story.
Swinging his laundry bag off his shoulder in front of a washer, Sidney figured he could at least accomplish one objective of his mission here even if he couldn't find the girl or talk to the man. For a moment, he couldn't figure out why he couldn't recognize some of the items in his bag. A vague nausea crept over him as he realized that somehow Mark's infected garments had taken a life of their own and staked their claim on his pile. Sidney grimaced and shoved the entire load into the darkness, looking around to make sure that he wasn't seen with the food-soiled t-shirt reduced to rags or the biohazardous briefs. He added a bit more detergent than usual for good measure at the risk of it overflowing in a soapy mess.
As he shut the door, he jumped backwards as if to cover the incriminating garments. To his horror, he saw a set of dark eyes staring at him in disbelief. Thin fingers contrasted by knobby knuckles clasped around a wooden broom handle. He turned around in the hopes that once he faced her again, she wouldn't disappear. Of all times, the one time he stopped looking, Sidney was finally able to find her. It almost reminded him of the time he lost his dorm keys and then found them by just giving up and sitting on the lounge couch, only to hear the jingling of his keyring in the couch cushions. It's always when you stop looking for someone or something, they find you. Or more accurately, she had found him...with his roommate's filthy undergarments plastered against the glass washer door for the world to see.
When he slowly turned around with the terror that she might have seen the soiled briefs, Sidney met her eyes again to see that she was laughing. Not only had she not disappeared, she was almost glad to see him. Either that, or she was making fun of him and what she had perceived to be his complete lack of decent hygeine.
"Are you ok?" The girl leaned a bit harder onto her broom. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
As if reasserting that yes, he was taller than her, Sidney stood up straight. "You could say that. Do you remember me?"
"Hard to say, a lot of people come through here." Her eyes lit up. "Are you here for the show?"
Maybe she was talking about the occasional Bollywood projected on the screen once the curtains drew back. "Not really. I just wanted to talk to your father."
For a moment, the girl looked like she had been hit by a bus, or like Sidney had slapped her in the face. "What do you know about my father?"
"You know, the owner?" Sidney said cautiously. Apparently he had touched a nerve. Granted, he expected a teenage girl to have issues with her family, but this seemed a bit too far.
"Oh, Lester?" The girl laughed from deep within her stomach. "He's not my father. He just randomly hired me one day when I was running by."
"Funny, that guy doesn't look like a Lester..." Now Sidney was completely confused.
"Well then, if you're so smart at choosing names, what's mine?" The girl poked him with her finger. It sort of hurt, but was more unexpected than anything else.
"I couldn't say..." Things definitely were getting to be on the strange side. At the very least, it could make for an interesting story if there was some sort of lesson in it.
"Well, there you go." She said, smiling with satisfaction. "You can't presume anything about anyone, whether it's their name or who their father is."
Was this the lesson he was supposed to learn? For a solid moment, all he could do was stare blankly at her.
"Don't worry, I was just kidding." She laughed again. "The last thing I wanted to do was get all preachy to a complete stranger. I'm Mira."
"Oh." For a moment, Sidney couldn't understand why the girl was stretching her hand to him. It wasn't like he needed to be helped up. "I'm Sidney."
"Nice meeting you Sidney." She shook his hand and immediately resumed pushing the broom rhythmically. "If you'll excuse me, I better get this done before the show starts."
Almost completely satisfied, Sidney sank onto the couch staring at the curtained stage around the corner of the row of machines. Occasionally glancing at the washing machine, he found that the offending pair of briefs had retreated further into the dark. Sidney shuddered upon coming to the realization that he had shaken Mira's hand after touching Mark's disgusting briefs and not washing his hands. He went back out into the lobby to look for a bathroom and washed his hands. For whatever reason, he did it in a hurry so he could get back in time for the movie to start. It wasn't that he was particularly interested in Indian cinema, but he figured a new experience now and again would be nice, especially if he could get a story out of it.
Yet when he got back, even if it took a few minutes to find the bathroom and get back to where he was earlier in the theater, the curtains had not drawn back to reveal a silver screen nor had the house lights gone dimmer than before. There was no show. Somewhat disappointed, Sidney returned to the front counter to find that at least the line had dissipated.
"Your dau- I mean Mira is quite an odd girl, funny though." Even though Sidney had caught himself, the man looked at him like he was from Mars. "First she tells me that your name is Lester. I mean, if it is, that's cool, but I didn't think you looked like a Lester. Then she tells me that she's cleaning up before the show. There's no show, right?"
The wrinkles on the man's brow loosened as he smiled placidly. "Sounds to me like you have quite a story to tell."
"Sure thing." Sidney took out ten dollars from his pocket and slid it across the glass counter. "I'll have an idli sambhar. The rest is to cover the one from last week."
posted by janevalenz @ 9:22 PM
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