The Quarter Situation

June third. It was Simone's dryer. That is the important context. Her building's shared unit finally gave up sometime mid-week, and by Saturday she had a bag of laundry and a plan, and the plan involved me because I know which laundromat on the east side has the machines that actually finish the spin cycle instead of just stopping and pretending. I also allegedly had quarters. I had seven.

We got there around two in the afternoon, which is apparently the exact time everyone else in the neighborhood has the same idea. Simone handled the coin machine with the patience of someone who has negotiated worse things than a coin machine on a Saturday. I found two seats near the window and settled in for what turned out to be a longer wait than either of us planned, one of the dryers needed a second run, which is the laundromat equivalent of a plot twist. I looked at my phone. I looked at the dryer. I looked at my phone again. At some point Simone took a photograph of this process, which I stand by as an accurate document.

twelve more minutes. at least.

The folding part is where the Saturday-afternoon exhaustion really settles in. There is something about standing at a long formica counter under fluorescent lights with a pile of warm laundry that makes every conversation slower and more honest. Simone was talking and folding at the same time, which she does, and the fold was going sideways because the talking was winning, and I took a picture of that too because it felt like the most accurate summary of the afternoon.

mid-sentence. mid-fold. both unfinished.

We left around four-thirty. Simone's laundry was done. I had two quarters left, which felt like a surplus. On the walk out she said something about her building supposedly getting the dryer fixed by end of month, which I believe the same way I believe the spin cycle is going to stop when it says it's going to stop. But the light coming through the laundromat window at two in the afternoon was genuinely good, and I noted that, and Simone said 'you would,' and that was the afternoon.