On The Verge

It is had work to be poor. It is even harder work to be poor and female. And still harder to be poor, female, and want to remain fashionable.

The smallest chore, like doing laundry, becomes an all day event fraught with manual labor. First, you are faced with a very difficult decision: Do I take a cab to the Laundromat, or do I walk? If you take a cab, it could very well be an hour and a half before they arrive because it’s Saturday. Also they may not come at all because the last time you called a cab you ended up cursing out the dispatcher. Also you had very good reason to curse out the dispatcher because she was awful and tried to tell you it was your own fault that your cab arrived an hour and a half after you called, making you late for work, so you’re not sure you want to give them your business anyway.

Then, of course, if you decide you want to forgive and forget and they do in fact show up to your door, you can’t just go to the laundry mat by your house because it’s three blocks away, and that seems like a waste. So you would be forced to go to the one on Smith Street, which is a nicer laundry mat anyway, but then you are locked into taking a cab home. That’s about seven dollars each way because no matter how long it takes the cab to show up, and no matter if the driver doesn’t help you carry your laundry and no matter if there is not a single cab driver anywhere who actually knows how to drive, you still feel compelled to tip. So that will add fourteen dollars to your laundry bill. Not to mention the laundry mat on Smith St. is a lot more expensive than the one by your house.

But then there is walking. Walking to the laundry mat on Smith St. does not seem like an option. It’s too far away and you have two large, overstuffed laundry bags to carry. So this leaves the one by your house–but “by your house” is a relative term. When you have two large, overstuffed laundry bags, three long blocks on Spring St. seems a very long distance. And you’ll have to wear heels because your tennis shoes are still soaked with rain, and seeing as how you insist on being a fashionable girl, they are the only tennis shoes you own. After all, tennis shoes are strangely expensive and why not spend your money on something you actually want to wear?

So, if you decide to walk to the one “by your house” in your heels that are very worn down from walking everywhere in heels, this means that you’ll have to deal with the terrible facilities at that particular laundry mat, as well as the man who owns it who insists on telling you how to do laundry when, of course, you already know how. And your clothes have a very good chance of catching fire in the dryer because it gets extremely hot. And there’s no air conditioning in there. And you may want to take a cab home because after doing your laundry and folding your flaming clothes, it may not seem like a good idea to walk three very long blocks home with two large laundry bags in the awful Charleston August heat.

After weighing these options, today I decided to walk. It was more economical and I’m still mad at the cab company. The funny thing is, that when you go through all this to get your laundry done, as you walk home carrying your bags you feel this wonderful sense of accomplishment. “I did it! I washed my clothes! With no help from anyone! I am strong, I am young and I can do anything!” Then the other side of you says, “You idiot. All you did was wash your clothes. And honestly, who walks all that way in heels?” This may be a valid point, but I don’t take how I look for granted. I know how important and wonderful it is to look and smell clean. I know that I can make it in this crazy world, no matter how much I don’t have. And I can do it in heels.

The dryer burned a whole in a pair of my best pants, though.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS