Last Call Laundromat with the People

At the laundromat on a late Saturday afternoon. This is what 'people' do. I realize as these words topple and tumble onto the page that, indeed, I am now officially part of this group so many of us scorn: People.

People. People suck. Why? While driving, it's the people who get in our way, the slow drivers, or 'those people' who drive aggressively and fast. It is those 'people' who speak on their cell phones while riding mass transit such that we non-people hear one-half of the conversation, although the phone's often on speaker due to the squealing brakes and noise; we're hearing the people on the other end of the phone too.

It is 'people' who use the term "people" when they are attempting to get our attention. For example, "People please. Pee-puhl, pleeeze listen to me." These unheard leaders raise their hand into the air and attempt to address the multitude of us muttering non-listeners. All of us chatting together, all of us, um, people. Mr. Meek, my seventh grade social studies teacher referred to us adolescents as People. That was 35 years ago, far ahead of his time.

We are called "people" because it's socially acceptable to do so rather than the age-old, quasi-sexist "Ladies and Gentlemen." This has gone to the wayside probably because more and more men rarely act gently, let alone as a gentleman might, which may be known as chivalrous. You know, holding open a door or laying down a trench coat over a curb-cut's puddle. Who would do that latter act anyway, other than, say, Popeye for Olive Oyl (skittle-lee-doo!)?

And ladies? Well, hard-fought (thank you Phyllis Schafly of Nancy Reagan era, who headed up Ladies Against Women), but this has held on much moreso than the gentleman thing. The feminist movement has keenly nudged the Lady title towards the door, though. Yet, even among my contemporaries, we women, that is, I still hear referrals to our gender as, "That lady over there," or, "Some lady nearly drove her shopping cart into me." We struggle to use the term 'woman,' and 'young woman,' and know well enough to occasionally not refer to our female sistahs as 'girls.' Alas, we fall back to the 'lady.'

At the very least, it's sad I know, since I am, I can honestly say, no lady. A woman yes, but definitely not a lady. Sure, I can don the heels-and-hose, wear the dangly earrings, and hand over an unopened jar of preserves to some guy to twist open. However, when an errant youth hollers out, "Hey lady!" when trying to get me to move off the sidewalk, my head does not turn towards his voice. Ladies have poise and . I lumber and work terribly hard not to knock things over. As my mom once said to us as she took us into an overpriced crystal and finery shop, "Hands By Sides." To this day, I try to adhere my elbows to my ribs when walking near someone's China hutch. And as such, as a loose deduction of not being a lady, and not being part of Tom Jones' iconic tune, "She's a lady, whoa-oh-oh!..." I am officially people.

People in laundromats -- we're all doing a cleaning job with our most intimate clothing and our basic outer wear. When people fold clothes, they hold them up, find the seam, gather the fabric together in a cloth-form of origami. This is true for every article but underwear. Men who fold boxers, or those male people, yes, they hold them up for all to see the snappy plaid or Garfield and Odie pattern. When it comes to their briefs? No. We don't see them at all.

Women with bras and "panties," (I've never been fond of that term), me included, do a quick grab-and-clasp fold, like it's a taco shell snapping in half. There the undies are on top of the wheelie-basket pile. We grab them by the waist band, quickly pull taut along the hips (holding them low, near our own hips, away from the general public's eye), snap them shut, and jam them into a mound of other undies. It's as if nobody has ever seen a pair of undies held up in the air or tossed to the side in a mad fit of passion. Underwear folding is personal, though.

And it's a horror movie if any of them should flit and flutter off the pile and onto the floor. Then what? Make a mental note to wash them at home or do we assume that mythical food-on-the-floor five-second rule? That is, we speculate that no cooties scampered across the linoleum and into the waistband if scooped up within five seconds? Uh huh. Scientists have proven that it could be on the floor for two seconds or ten: the outcome's still the same. Snatch those panties up, shake them out, roll them up, plunge into the pile, and move on.

When the sun drops, as it does earlier and earlier on these winter days, the laundromat lights illuminate us in a way that parallels the piercing lights of a darkened disco bar after Last Call. We appear less appealing, we're here, alone in a barren place, on a Saturday, doing something we'd rather not do, and, worse, we're not necessarily going home with someone savory and lusty. Instead, our arms are filled with folded towels and rolled socks all stacked into a basket, rolling cart, or wheeled luggage.

We here in the end-of-day Laundromat are the post-Last Call people without a Saturday night date - we are the ones glancing around the room, reading skewed flyers on the walls, staring at our unringing cell phones, or sucking down the final droplets of our over-priced melted ice drinks. We are the pale ones under the blaring lights who've not danced or moved much during the past couple hours. We, us Saturday evening laundromatters are the post-Last Call singlets and instead of smelling like sloshed gin and dancefloor sweat, we smell fresh and clean like Bounce.

No ladies or gentlemen here, I have become, as a result of incidences and unexpected disconnections am one of them, a member of the group known as The Evening Laundromat People. As a sidebar, I'd like to request that nobody think of that famous Charlton Heston phrase, "Soylent Green is People!" Instead, think of it simply, as Mr. Meek hollered in advance of us really understaning his meaning, that I am people.