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27 October 2010
Wednesday has become a normal laundry day because the laundromat is usually free of bizarre people, which means it is empty. Our week is literally planned around this Wednesday evening ritual. Marieke even finished work early so that we could get the extra stuff done like sheets and towels. Upon arrival our hopes for a peaceful, uneventful laundry experience were quickly laid to waste as we noticed what we like to call ‘Greenfield’s only trailer trash',’ or West Virginia’s ambassadors to Greenfield. Pick which one is more offensive and go with that.
Upon the four seats closest the only door sat a gender-obscured person who we had come to know from when she was employed at Giant Eagle and who used to make regular appearances parading up and down our own street with more than one stroller. The products of whatever union- presumably drug induced- now numbered five and have all been relegated, thanks to the actions, or lack thereof, to evil child land despite not having direct culpability themselves. The Giant Eagle girl had a laptop which appeared to be the only thing she cared about since the two older boys had strewn across the entry area, numerous Matchbox cars. With wheels. By the door. Not just by the door, right there as soon as you walk in, there the cars were. Then there were a series of girls who couldn’t have been more in the way of accessing the facility had they been laying outside the door. The mother figure was not unfamiliar to us, but still startling in her looks and severe absence of any ‘motherly’ behavior or other skills relating to being a parent. It was truly shocking. It shocks us each time we witness the general concern for the well being of the children that just is not there with either the mother figure of the Giant Eagle girl.
Our load consisted of around ten-thousand pounds of washables. Being the strongest, I am usually in charge of bringing in the baskets. So I went about this task, hoping that the initial shock of seeing someone else enter what was clearly the territory of the un-behaved, discipline deprived, parental neglect that was the five children, would introduce a kind of limited interaction with these people. That was not to be. On my second trip across the threshold of the establishment, I was met with a clothes cart being shoved into my face by the youngest child- a girl whose diaper was in desperate need of attention. The mother person wasn’t in sight and all Giant Eagle girl could muster was a half-hearted ‘oh sorry,’ followed by a chuckle. My interaction with obnoxious, unruly, poorly supervised children in the element of the adult world is well known. Just ask the little brat I knocked down with my knees at Golden Corral because he couldn’t make up his mind which direction he wanted to go next. Or the ankle biter whose head came into abrupt contact with my elbow at Target. His problems were made all the worse by the fact that he couldn’t find his mommy, even though she was screaming his name just two aisles over. The girl with the clothes cart got off easy. The cart only bounced off my arm enough to send her to her poppy butt with a slight but unmistakable squish.
From one end of that place to the other the children ran, free of reprisal or direction from the only two adults with them. Once the clamor became a bit more in the background, our evening was brightened with the arrival of sneering, snarling, nose wrinkling, German Sprockets man. His goal was to annoy us in ways that the five children and trailer trash could not hit upon. First, he sauntered up to the washing machines into which I put detergent and the necessary quarters in preparation for Marieke to then activate and let the water suds a bit. He pushed the quarters in and looked at the one next to it, also with detergent and quarters and asked if we were using this one as well. ‘Uh yeah, and those are our quarters you just pushed in,’ ya jack knife. Are the washers free in Germany along with the freedom to wear sandals over socks, then? Then he proceeded to not be more than three feet in any direction from either of us while he was marching back and forth between the first washer and the second that he was using. Once his handkerchiefs were sufficiently unfurled and carefully placed in the optimal spot in the drum, and all of his articles were awash, he placed himself at the rear of the building, and even though he had the entire place to look at, including the television and the outside, stared at us. It was creepy.
I had to point out to Giant Eagle girl that the cars were still in front of the door three times and scolded two of the children for running around so close to the table. Nothing dictatorial, just a friendly reminder that this was not a playground and that they should not be running around. I nearly lost composure when I found one of the snotnoses hiding behind my hamper, touching and falling in, on and around it, barely keeping it upright.
It was a sight to behold when, after witnessing how unable the children were to keep what little food they were given off of their clothing, the floor, the chairs, the folding tables, the dryers, inside the dryers, the pop machines and the arcade games, the mother person laid newspaper in the bottom of the clothes cart that conveyed her laundry to her vehicle. Newspaper. Try putting some of that down your kids front when they eat. Better yet, use that to diaper your toddlers so they have exposure to literature. Put newspaper in the bottom of the clothes cart… are you even for serious?!
At some point during the evening, the mother had a Subway sandwich, and the children had a small bite, but continued to stare at her while she ate the rest. I felt bad for the kids, but felt even worse for the people they come into contact on a daily basis. If they are being sent to school and their teachers are not informing CYF that these children do not have proper hygiene at home, they are not doing their jobs at all. The one child had some kind of debris in his hair, which could have admittedly been obtained in the four hours or so since the school day ended, but it seemed like it had been resident upon his head for quite a bit longer than that. Their adult lives will likely be spent on the dole queue, sadly.
I love kids. I hate most of their parents because inevitably they will say or do something to their child that I would do differently in their place. That is a lot to say since I am not a parent, but I say it with a very high degree of confidence. I reserve the right to revisit this statement after my offspring have sprung.
Finally, they were gone and we had to spend the rest of the evening waiting for our laundry to dry and in fear of our lives from staring, snarling German Sprocket man. His penchant for causing discomfort was matched only by his inability to steer the three-wheeled clothes cart. We knew we were in the clear when he threw his laundered items into his basket cube and left.
Just another day at the laundromat.
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