Monday, September 12, 2005

who knew the wheel of fortune had a rinse cycle?

On my way to get a ride to a party for the people in my program this afternoon, I passed by a big sign for LUCKY LAUNDRY. For one thing, if there is an area of my life where I really don't want there to be a large "chance" component, even if in my favor, it's with my freaking laundry. For another, I had this fantasy about turning around and filling out an online application right then so I could open up a competing laundromat called UNLUCKY LAUNDRY across the street, complete with black cats and number thirteens and broken mirrors as decor, and maybe a ladder that you had to walk under to get the place. In addition to slaking my entrepeneurial thirst, I could compare profits with the place across the street and see what exactly is the ratio of drippy optimists to dark ironicists here around Harvard.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Here I sit in Cambridge at 10:36 PM on Sunday September 11, 2005 and read your Monday September 12 blog. How DO you do it? You'll finish your life before its time.

jeremy said...

UNLUCKY LAUNDRY will feature a time-turning tumble dryer that will allow everyone to perpetrate just such temporal inversions for only 25 cents per each fifteen minutes into the future. So, wait for the grand opening!

jeremy said...

I will leave it for readers to decide whether, if single, they would rather stock their mating pool with the clientele of a place called LUCKY LAUNDRY or a place across the street called UNLUCKY LAUNDRY.

Anonymous said...

Oh, pleeze.

Anonymous said...

http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/LaundryBar

Anonymous said...

How can we trust you? Wrong date (tsk).

Anonymous said...

He's in Cambridge, England...

Anonymous said...

Hmmm. Now that youngest daughter is going to school in Boston, I will be compelled as a dedicated parent to advise her to stay away from Lucky Laundry, I suppose. Can't have her becoming prey to Harvard men looking to get lucky. Fortunately, she's across the river, and BU is no doubt accepting only gentlemen.

Anonymous said...

Jeremy, here is your Bangladesh v. Sri Lanka Test Cricket update.

After their first innings, Bangladesh are on 188 all out. At Tea on Day 2, Sri Lanka have three wickets in hand and a lead of 149 runs.

jeremy said...

Jeff: Thanks. I've got a few thousand rupees bet on Sri Lanka, so hopefully they will hold their advantage.

Tonya said...

When I lived in Somerville, I had to take my clothes to the laundromat for cleaning. What a hassle it was to be dragging a cart filled with laundry across the snow and ice covered streets during the winter months! But now I miss going to the laundry. They are an interesting community hub and an excellent place to people watch. I sometimes think about going to the laundry here in Madison even though I have my own washer and dryer.

Anonymous said...

Tonya, as many times as I have seen it on tv and heard people say that going to the laundromat can be a fun/enlightening social experience filled with new and interesting people, I have never ever found that to be the case. Ever. Maybe I'm going to the wrong laundromats.

Tonya said...

Anon 10:13 -- The laundry I went to in Somerville was very downscale and not a haven for yuppies. It brought together an interesting array of people -- very different from the folks you see in Whole Foods, for example. Although the laundry provided an excellent people watching opportunity, I never made friends with any of the other patrons. So, it wasn't social in the sense that going to the laundry expanded my network of friends.