Weekends at Westbrae Wash 'n' Dry

The guy who manages the laundromat I go to is a little... off.  The Yelp reviews refer to him as the Laundry Troll, which is not entirely inaccurate.  He's kind of old, grizzly, and very crotchety.  He has a gruff and gravelly voice, and he likes to bark orders at people, telling them not to overfill the machines, or not to leave their dry clothes in the dryer too long, things like that.

At first I was a little intimidated by him, because he's kind of mean, and he's a little creepy when you're a young woman going to do your laundry and he's the only other one there, sweeping the floor and giving you side glances.  But now that I've been going there a few months, he's actually grown on me, in a weird way.  I think he might have some sort of learning disability or something, because he talks a little strangely, and he repeats himself a lot.  My impression of him now is that he just takes his job very seriously, and he likes to take good care of his laundromat, and he also kind of likes to tease people in that way that crotchety old men with a twinkle in their eye do.  I had to go to the bathroom a few weeks ago, and the bathroom door was locked.  "Is there a key to the bathroom?" I asked.  "Uh-huh," he replied, deliberately being as unhelpful as possible and seeing how I would respond.  "Do you have it?" I asked, catching on to his game.  "Uh-huh," he replied.  "Well, can I get you to let me in, then?" I concluded.  And I think he's liked me ever since.

This morning when I showed up to do my laundry, the Laundry Troll was nowhere to be seen.  It was nice and quiet on a Sunday morning, so I loaded up my laundry and sat down to work on my knitting.  Another lady came in, and as she was loading up her laundry, the machine next to her started spewing water.  A big puddle was spreading across the floor, and not showing any signs of stopping.  "Is that yours?" I asked, motioning to the washer.  "Nope!" she said, clearly relieved.  I looked around and whoever's clothes were creating the problem had disappeared.  I set down my knitting and went out the back door to the parking lot, where the Laundry Troll can sometimes be found sweeping or working in the garden.  No luck.

The maintenance closet door was open, so I poked my head in and found a mop.  As I came out and headed for the puddle, an old guy in a tracksuit came in the front door.  "Do you work here?" he half-grumbled at me suspiciously.  "No," I said.  "But this washer started spewing water, so I thought I'd see if I could find a mop."  I started sopping up as much water as I could, but there wasn't much I could do without a bucket.  The old man stood shoulder-to-shoulder with me, watching me swish the water around, looking slightly bemused.  "Hnh," he grunted.  "Where's Larry?"  "I don't know," I replied, assuming he was talking about the Laundry Troll.  In any case, I hadn't seen anyone but him and the Asian lady, so I was pretty sure I hadn't seen anyone named Larry.  "You know Larry, right?" said the old man.  "Larry Lasagna?"

I didn't even know what to say, so I just stared at him.  "Yeah, Larry Lasagna!  I don't know where he is today."

"Me neither," I said.

"You need a bucket," the old man continued, after a pause.  "Where'd you get that mop?"  "In the closet," I said.  "The door was wide open."  He glanced at the door, then back at me, then shuffled across the room to the maintenance closet.

A few clangs and thuds later, the old man in the tracksuit emerged victorious, awkwardly carrying a five-gallon bucket.  He set it down next to me, and I gratefully set the mop in the bucket, letting the gray water collect in the bottom.  Bits of dirt and debris streamed from the mop, but the water was coming out the bottom of the washer faster than I would ever be able to get it into the bucket.  The old man looked at me waiting for the water to drain from the mop.  "You're gonna have to squeeze it out with your hands," he said.  Dude.  No way.  I was already going above and beyond the call of duty by getting a mop of my own accord.  No way was I going to squeeze dirty floor water out of it into a bucket with my bare hands.

I stood there letting it drip for a few seconds, and the old man stood there watching me.  The Asian lady was bustling around doing her laundry, trying her best not to get swept up in the drama of the malfunctioning washer.  The old man looked at me and harrumphed again.  "A shovel.  We can squeeze it out with a shovel."  And he shuffled off back to the maintenance closet.

Forget it, I thought.  I've done more than my fair share.  I propped the mop against the washer and sat back down to work on my knitting.

The old man now had a purpose.  He set to work mopping water and squishing it out into the bucket with the shovel.  He seemed quite satisfied with himself, and also not at all bothered that I had abandoned what had started out as my work.  After a short while, my laundry was done washing, and I was grateful to have an excuse to concentrate on something else.  As I was moving my clothes from the washers to the dryers, the Laundry Troll made an appearance through the back door.

"Steve!" said the old man.  "You got a problem on your hands!"  So the Laundry Troll was apparently not named Larry Lasagna, at least.  Whatever his name, I was glad the old man was the one sloshing water around when he arrived.

Steve/Laundry Troll/not Larry Lasagna took one look at the water and broke out his stash of beach towels.  He was much less angry than I expected.  All in a day's work, I suppose.  I tried to look inconspicuous as I pumped quarters into the dryers, wondering what would happen next.

As Steve was finishing mopping up the water, a pot-bellied man came into the laundromat and headed straight for the problem washer.  The old man pounced on him.  "You overfilled it!" he half-yelled self righteously.  "Look what happens when you overfill the washers!"

"No, no," said Steve the Laundry Troll.  "When there's too many people on the rinse cycle at the same time, 's too much water for the pipe.  Pipe's only 'bout yea big," he said, making a small ring with his hands.  It was the longest sentence I had ever heard him construct.  "Not enough room."

The old man seemed a little disappointed, and the pot-bellied man seemed like he just wanted out of there.  The old man and Steve continued talking about something, and a few minutes later, the old man came over to me again.  "How'd you say you got in the closet?" he asked.  "The door was wide open," I repeated.  He studied me for a moment, then walked back to talk to Steve.

I finished loading the dryers and sat down to work on my knitting.  A minute later, the old man was back.  "You're very industrious!" he exclaimed, apparently quite pleased that not only did I have the chutzpah to look for a mop in a water emergency, but I could knit too.  "What are you making?"  "A hat," I said, not really wanting to engage in conversation with 24 minutes left on my drying cycle.  "Well, it's a nice color," he said.

"Steve wanted to know how you got in the closet, and I said karma!  Ha ha!"  I couldn't help chuckling a little bit.  "She opened that door with her karma, I says!"

"Well, when there's water leaking all over the floor and an open closet, I figure the least you can do is look for a mop," I said.

He looked at me for a moment.  Then: "A very industrious young lady..."

Do things like this happen in State College, Pennsylvania, do you think?

I'm going to miss this town.