The laundromat from hell

©2014 Lydia Hinshaw

Do not go there

  PORTLAND, PA -- Wednesday was our eighth day on the road, so when we spotted a coin laundry in East Stroudsburg, PA, it seemed a good idea to stop in.

 I don't have high standards for laundromats;  all I want to do is get in and get out, as quickly as possible.  But I should have been suspicioius when the attendant gave me my choice of two machines of the fifty or so lined up in this large facility.

 It was only after I had the washer started that I noticed how many "out of order" signs there were on washers and dryers.  Sometimes, to break the monotony, a machine would be labeled "do not use" instead.

 We ate a picnic lunch while the clothes washed.  During this time, the attendant had one loud altercation with a customer (over missing towels from a drop-off order) and one louder argument with a lady upset that there were no fabric softener sheets available for sale.

 Later I got into a conversation with the second customer, who turned out to be quite a nice lady and the owner of a local campground.  How interesting.  We were looking for a campsite for the evening.  She also mentioned she should have known better than to come here, as there were several nicer laundromats not far away.

 I returned my attention to my chores, and checked my watch.  It was 12:40 p.m. and the digital display on my machine read eight minutes left. Twenty minutes later the washer, which had seemed unusually quiet, worked its way down to zero, but only after the attendant had come over to shake it a couple of times.

  That's when I discovered the spin cycle had been faked.  The clothes were sopping wet.  The attendant had me move them to another machine which she set ahead to the spin cycle at no charge.

 Nine more minutes to go.  I told Prince Charming we were not going to gamble on the dryers in this place, lest our clothes be set afire or shredded.

 Once the second machine finished spinning, we loaded the clothes in a clean garbage bag and set out in search of another laundromat.  We found one, just behind a Dunkin Donuts.  It was small, clean and modern, and there were no machines out of order.  There was wi-fi available.

 I loaded a dryer while the Prince set out to get us coffee, and this is the end of the laundry part of the story.

 I'd gotten directions to my fellow-customer's campground, and we found it.  It's early in the season here in the Poconos, so we have it mostly to ourselves.

 This is the second time we've lucked into a nice overnight spot after an encounter in a laundromat.  The first was in 2007, in Anacortes, WA, when we were just off the ferry from Alaska and washing clothes in a perfectly acceptable laundromat.  A young man noticed our Honda Element and our Florida plates and struck up a conversation.  He told us about his RV park and cabins and gave us directions.  We liked the place, the price was right and we stayed two days.

 Which proves that laundromat visits can sometimes have silver linings.