It’s not just what people say.

But also about what they don’t say. I realize more and more there is something in the not saying anything that can be as much of a transgression as there is in saying something.

Generally, I’m try to follow the tenant of live and let live but there are times when I just can’t refrain.

I had lunch with a friend this past week. The guy is someone I used to work with years ago and we worked fairly closely to each other for about three or four years. I mean that in the sense that we were cubicle neighbors.

He was a good neighbor for the most part, highly opinionated, loud and brash and times but someone with a good heart.

Reacquainting myself reminds me again of those qualities I liked about him.

He broke his arm not too long ago punching a guy in the subway. That he punched someone in the subway is not entirely surprising, that he broke his arm is. Certainly, he was well within his rights by doing what he did (punching someone). To me, he’s a New Yorker.

He’s not some johnny-come-lately transplant who considers themselves a New Yorker rather, he’s a born and bred, dyed in wool true New Yorker. The kind that harkens back to the old days when the city wasn’t at all the kinder, gentler place it is now since it has long since been Disneyfied. He’s got that rough around the edges, street smart thing going on in spades. It doesn’t mean he isn’t a good guy, absolutely the opposite but, his tolerance for stupidity is low and I think on that level we connect.

Friday, I was down in my local laundromat.

Why I just don’t break down and get a washer and dryer I’ll never know but going down to the laudromat is just something keeping me honest.

I’m always fascinated too by the whole laundromat experience, who goes, when they go, why they go... that kind of thing. I’m pretty much guaranteed if I go very early in the morning on a weekday to have a very quiet laundry experience whereas if I go on a weekend it is diametrically opposite in tone. There’s much more noise and clamor on the weekend than during the week.

Party time in the laundromat.

Anyway, Friday I got out of work early and figured it would be a good idea to run some of those errands that will take up Saturday morning (if they wind up getting done at all). So, I made the quick trip to the dry cleaners and then shot over to do the wash.

Now, maybe it’s just me but I think there’s something wrong with letting your kid sit in a dryer. When I got into the laundry and was trying to get my clothes from the doorway to the bulk washer I had my path blocked by this woman who had taken over a section of the laundromat. Better still was her kid who was sitting halfway into the dryer.

Aside from the fact other people are using the thing to dry their clothes, and aside from the fact these dryers seem to break down periodically from misuse is there anyone else who finds it odd? So, as I was trying to get by and had to get by the kid with the dryer door open (who closed the dryer door and sealed herself in so I could pass), I made her get out and I made it clear to the mother she wasn’t to get back in.

????

There was another woman in there who had been giving the mom and her kid this kind of look, the look that said, “You really shouldn’t let your child do that.” But she wasn’t saying anything!

Alright, so fair enough.

I don’t babysit my clothes either. I come back in an amount of time to move the things to the dryer and then come back as they are finishing up the drying process to do my folding.

So, when I got back, my clothes were out of the washer.

Why this bothers me, I don’t know but it does. I have this concern about the stray sock getting misplaced by careless transfer of some other clothing mishap. It’s a bit irrational, I know so I try to keep my annoyance subdued.

However, the person who removed my clothes (which had stopped no more than five minutes earlier) did have other washers available. Also, it was again one of those people who descend on the laundromat like a plague of locusts with enough clothes to garb a small army. In tow were three kids and a man of some undetermined relation.

I threw my stuff in the dryer and took off again.

Later on I came back. Friday was one of those relatively warm days for a change. The sun actually made it out from behind the clouds for a few hours and it really felt a bit more like summer because of it. So, even though it was late in the afternoon it was kind of hot out. When I had gone down earlier to the laundromat I had set the doors open because the ceiling fans weren’t turned on and it gets unbearably hot in there.

When I came back the doors were closed for some strange reason and I walked in to a nice bracing wall of heat as I opened the door since all the dryers were going. I latched one of the doors open, and then started to get about the business of prepping the table there for some folding.

The person who had moved my clothes out of the dryer had taken over the front part of the laundromat, taken up all the remaining dryers but four (two of which I had) and left little or no space for the other people in at the time (and the laundry was starting to fill up since it was early evening on Friday).

As I’m getting my clothes together, the guy that was with her goes over to close the door. See, he was playing some kind of handheld video game and they had a two or three year old with them. Basically he couldn’t be bothered to watch the kid and keep her from going out of the doors so he closed the doors so everyone could sweat.

Needless to say again, just as the guy is getting ready to close the doors, I yell from the other side of the laundromat, “KEEP IT OPEN!” He looks for at me for a second, sizes up the situation and then moves away from the door. Now he has to keep a closer eye on the kid. The other kids had been running around, screaming, playing because they were bored. Well, after I made that comment about the door everything quieted down considerably.

There were four or five other people in the laundromat at the time. One guy went and sat down by the open door afterwards to stay cool. Generally though, people seemed a lot more comfortable with the doors open and without kids running around in this small, hot space, yelling and screaming.

Now, I don’t like having to say anything at all. But geez! Show some damn consideration to the people around you. If you keep your mouth shut when you see people being rude does it make more sense just to walk around later talking about it when you could’ve just opened your mouth and put a stop to it?