Recently I’ve been doing my laundry in the evenings, and there is always a very old lady playing lottery with scratch off tickets the entire time I’m there. It doesn’t matter which day, or what time, she’s there. She only scratches off one ticket at a time, then leaves the table in the laundromat, goes outside, walks next door to the fake Dairy Mart, buys one more lottery ticket, comes back into the laundromat, sits down at the table and starts scratching again. For God knows how long. She mumbles to herself as she does this, and scratches off every single particle of scratch-offiness that is present on the card.
She has a friend who doesn’t talk to anyone but her. This friend talks approximately 73 grillion miles a minute to Lottery Lady about anyone and everyone who is sick and dying, and oh how terrible it is and did you know what kind of headstone he had and he was buried two weeks ago today and so and so’s sister is in hospice and he has “Altheimer’s” and starts to scream and the bills they have are so expensive did you know that his lungs are filled with this yellow fluid…
The Tremont Laundromat is a never-ending source of surreality. It is almost worth the $2.75 I pay for each load of laundry.