It was a dark and wet night. The sun had just fallen below the horizon maybe a half an hour earlier. The night was young when she came into my life.
I knew she was trouble as soon as she walked in. She stood there looking confused for a moment as she scanned the area with those deep brown eyes. Perhaps it was her confused face she wore for too long that gave me the assumption or maybe it was her shirt but I knew in my soul that she didn't do laundry here very often. Or maybe it was because I come here a lot and I have never seen her.
She had a shirt on that said tacocat. Its a palindrome, I noticed that right away. But what did it mean? I couldn't know for sure. I just sat there from the low gloom of the light watching as she scanned the laundromat. Looking every bit as mysterious as her shirt.
It was laundry day for me as well and I had my laundry shirt on. It had salsa stains from the night before because two things. One, I knew I was going to do laundry on this damp gray Tuesday and I had no other shirt to wear on dollar dryer Tuesdays. And two, because last night I wanted salsa with my chips as I watched Must Love Dogs. I had gotten some Juanita's chips at the local grocery and at two bucks a bag, I couldn't resist having some salsa as well. I could eat a whole bag in one seating like a beaver chomping at a log building his home. However, I was not building anything. I didn't change out of my shirt, too lazy, just decided to go to bed after the movie, chip crumbles and all.
Fast forward to now and I'm here watching this mysterious woman in a tacocat shirt lugging a trash bag full of laundry. She stood there like a confused majestic stallion in cargo shorts. Her legs went on for days. All the way down to her socks that had sandals over them. That was curious I thought, as it had been raining maybe for few hours now. Did she not look out her window? How could she leave her place and not think maybe I should put regular shoes on? The questions kept piling up in my head. Mysteries that had no answers. How could this be?
She started throwing heaps of her clothes into the washer. I knew then perhaps she didn't care how her clothes came out of the laundry as long as they were clean because she was mixing her whites with colors.
I too liked to live on the edge but I never mixed my whites with my colors. I couldn't bring myself to do that kind of madness. She was an audacious fig indeed. Perhaps it was what my life was missing. A soul this intrepid and yet soft around the sandals. More questions arose inside my head.
The rain was starting to fall more heavily now. You could hear the soft tapping of water droplets on the front windows. The low gloom of the yellow lights gave the whole place a very surreal feeling. Like a library...no, more like a gas station. Or something like that. In any case, everyone here, you could tell did not want to be here.
That's when I heard it from across the room. A crack. Somebody had opened a redbull. I needed to know who. Somewhere from deep within my soul, a burning curiosity had been born. I leaned over in my chair to try and see around the washers but couldn't see anyone. I knew I was risking my seat by getting up but the curiosity had overcome my every inch and I took the gamble and strolled down to find the solution to this terrestrial mystery.
It was a younger man with a backwards baseball cap. It had some letters on the backside but I knew nothing about sports so they meant next to nothing to me. I watched for a moment as he gulped down that energy drink like it had vodka in it. I knew immediately this was not worth gambling my perfect seat.
I turned back the way I came to return to my seat and the tacocat woman had taken my spot. Oh no, I thought, that was my favorite seat. What was I to do now? I had no choice, I had to ask for my seat back. It gave me the best view of the whole place and was near my dryer.
I walked over to her and she had started fiddling with her phone, typing furiously with her thumbs.
"Uh hi, sorry to bother ya but I was sitting there, I just got up for a moment," I told her.
She looked up from her phone, looked at my face for a moment before looking around to make sure that I was in fact talking to her. Which I was. I gave her a polite smirk as she turned her gaze back to me.
"Oh," she said "there are some chairs over there," she pointed with her free hand. "It's just my stuff is in the washer right here."
Then she just lowered her head again and she was gone into the cyber space of her phone. Never to be heard from again.
I stood there unwilling to give up my seat.
"My clothes are actually right here too," I said putting my hand on the dryer right next to the chair.
"Look man," she said more forcefully, "I had a long day, just grab a seat over there. I already have my stuff here, my bag, a cart, my purse."
I just looked at her as the frustration built up behind my eyes. The fury of the heavens was boiling to the brim. So many things to say were racing through my head and all I could say was, "uh, sure, no prob."
Damn it! I left her at the chair and took a seat from across the way. I just stared at her as she giggled at her phone with blindly rage. I knew next time, if she was ever in here again, I would not give up my seat that easily.
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