The question I had to ask myself was "How bad a thump should the spin cycle make before I call a repair man?" I decided I had reached that point. Smoke filled the laundry room. Burnt rubber smell. The verdict? Bad barrings. Throw it away, the parts and labor are too expensive to fix. Oh Goodie.
A week had gone by and I still hadn't decided what to do. Buy used and cheap or new and expensive. My hubby is headed to Haiti in 1 week, Christmas is around the corner. What to do.
My Guy and I went to the Laundromat and washed all the clothes in 35 minutes. Wow! That was easy! (I should mention that it was $22 to just wash them all, but hey, that was the fastest washing I had ever done!) We hauled all the wet clothes home and one load at a time and 14 hours later, they were all dried and folded.
Week 2 of stillnowasher. My husband is now in Haiti. 6 baskets of clothing are needing washing and I'm no closer to having a washer than I was last week. Dropped the kids off at school, loaded the baskets and headed to the Miracle Wash Store. 1 person occupied the Laundromat when I arrived. They sat in their car. It was all mine. I loaded all the clothes, 5 washers full and off I sat to read my book. Delight.
People started milling in. The clothes are all washed. It took 14 hours to dry them all last time, I'd be crazy to do that again. I'll just dry them here today. Most at least. Pretty soon the place was really hopping. Most people milling around not talking. Except him. I see him all the time. I know who he is. I'm not fully comfortable around him. He has never done anything to me to make me feel that way, I just felt that way and was ok with it. He doesn't look like he's got much. He's kinda messy looking. I look down, away, around, pretty much anywhere but making eye contact with him. I listen. He knows almost everyone in this place. They all know him. One by one he makes his way through the Laundromat talking to them. They are laughing with him. He's loud. But kind. Asking everyone how they are and keeping in conversation with many. Then he talks to me. I bristle. He identifies where he knows me from and keeps talking. He's talking to me. Why haven't I talked to him before? Am I too proud? Too judgmental? I see a side of me that I don't quite like. Who do I think I am?
One load is dry. There's 11 minutes left on the dryer. I look at a lady and say as much. She was SO appreciative. I'm a folding fool trying to get ahead of the other dryers. She comes back and offers to fold clothes with me. No, no, I couldn't allow her to do that. Thanks anyway. But she didn't leave. She stayed right there talking to me about her son she was so proud of. Her failed marriage. Her brain aneurisms. Her surgery. Her second change at life. She was precious. 5 baskets of laundry folded by this time and I've got myself an audience staring at how much clothing I had. I wish the excuse of "there's 6 of us" registered to someone. The last basket is almost done. I'm embarrassed at our abundance, so I don't bother with dishcloths and socks and I start lugging them to the van. My 2nd trip in and she's at the door with a basket for me. Then another. All the way till the end. She grabbed my arm. Asked my first name (I can't believe it, I hadn't even told her my name or asked hers!) and said how good it was to talk with me. She was kind. More kind than my measly 11 minutes on the dryer. She conversed. She was interested.
I learned a lot about myself this solo trip to the Laundromat. I came home and went through closets. We have been richly blessed. We need to share more than we are. But I'm haunted at my lack of compassion for people. My lack of kindness toward strangers. I can hear my own voice reading to my own kids just a week ago Phillipians 2:3-4 "Don't be selfish; don't try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don't look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too."
My kids won't learn a thing unless I believe what I read. I learned some humbling lessons from the Laundromat.
Thank you, Lord for a broken washer. Fill my heart with your loving kindness, compassion and grace. I am ugly inside without your help. Amen.
