Laundry and Locked Out
You know what I’d really like to be doing right now? Laundry. You weren’t expecting that, were you? I never minded doing laundry. For one, you really can’t beat the smell. For two, clean, fluffy clothes is always a win.
Okay, well, I lied, but just a little. When I lived in New York and had to lug my load a few blocks, developing a huernia along the way, I was not so much of a fan. When my parents helped move out of one moldy apartment to the next, they introduced me to the drop-off service as a means to save time. Boy, what a life changer. The way that they would fold the clothes! So neat! So tidy! I had done retail for years and had never gotten that square fold down. Oh, and the smell! It smelled even better than I could have imagined. I became an official drop off laundry lady and didn’t regret it one bit. When I moved back to New England, I couldn’t justify it as much. My parents lived relatively close, I visit them, therefore, hi parents and laundry became a weekly to-do.
A few months ago, my parents downsized and gifted me their washer and dryer. Cloud 9 was an understatement. My dad and cousin are so handy, the washing machine was ready to go in a bing, not even a bang! However, the dryer. That Bad Larry, I tell ya. I needed some pipe thingamajig installed and well, a line of electricity and all that fun jazz. I called my landlord and gave him the deets. His response: “No problem, Kristen. No problem.”
Two and a half months passed. I could wash my clothes, yet dry them, I could still not. I’d hang my clothes downstairs and come to check on them to find my neighbor there sniffing them. She is a sweet, 70 year-old Portuguese woman, Maria, who does not speak much English even though she has lived here for the past 45 years. She is there and saying “meow meow?” trying to insinuate that my clothes smell like my cat. And hello, if anything, they smell like coffee because I had walked into a fence the day before, and the fence impaled my coffee and exploded all over me. Yep, these things do kind of happen a lot. Anyway, I was thinking, I’d really prefer if this lady was not smelling and fondling my clothes, despite how lovely she is. Then I looked over. Oh, well at least she has folded some of my clothes. Not quite the neat tuck of the laundromat, but I’ll take it.
Despite the landlord’s lack of concern regarding my clothes being dry, I do love my apartment. Though, to be fair, half the time I am like who are these people that I am renting from. For example, the picture above. I came home after work, on a very wet Wednesday, just hoping to take a nice shower and relax with some light murder or a Christmas Hallmark movie. I noticed that my apartment doors looked different; they looked finished! I was shocked a few months back when my landlord sprung for new outside doors and even new steps which I probably won’t fall down (unlike the old ones). So, even though the new doors had been installed at the beginning of summer, there was still one door with a giant hole in it; a hole where a deadlock would eventually go, but until recently served as an empty space to insert one’s hands and break in. That was until Wednesday. On Wednesday, I noticed that there was a real lock in place of where it was once a hole. It was shiny! I inserted my keys, silently giving props to my landlord. It was then that I realized that the keys did not fit into the new lock. I tried again. Nope, no luck. I tried all of the other doors. Surely they wouldn’t have changed all the locks. That would not make any sense. I called my landlord.
The following conversation went down: “Hi Jose. The doors look good. You had them finished.” “Yes, yes Kristen. So nice.” “So, my key doesn’t fit into the locks anymore.” “Yes, no problem, Kristen. I left you two new keys.” “Where are they?” “Inside your apartment, Kristen. No problem, Kristen.” “Um well, how am I supposed to get into the apartment?” “Hmmm, these things happen. I don’t know. I can’t come right now. No problem, Kristen.”
I banged on the door multiple times but Maria was not home. She went out? Where did she go? It isn't Sunday. She probably isn't at church.
I ended up calling Agueda, the realtor, aka my late Great Aunt Evelyn´s adopted daughter (that's a whole other story). She was incredulous, especially since she was supposed to show the second floor apartment in just a couple of hours. She ended up driving to Central Falls to get a spare set and eventually, hours later, I was let in.
I get home from work on Friday and Maria is there waiting for me. She brings me to the basement and shows me my beautiful, completed dryer hookup. I am ecstatic. That is until she points to the chord and shows me that my dryer chord is of course too short to reach the newly installed outlet. He´ll be back “manana,” Maria said. He has not come back. And here I am on a Sunday with dirty clothes thinking about what outfits I will muster up for the week ahead.
Speaking of the lovely Maria, it makes me think how I was probably not the best English Language Learner teacher back in the day. Maria and I have been neighbors for six years and our basic everyday conversation is still, “Boa noite. Bonito. Meow meow. Obrigada. Hahaha.”
And speaking of her son, John, did I ever tell you about the time I came downstairs to find him skinning a huge turkey, hanging in the doorway?!
And disclaimer: somehow in the middle of writing all of this, my keyboard turned on me and starting spitting out some weird symbols so I apologize for any and all grammar mishaps.
