Laundromats are crazy-intimate places.   Where else can you scream, “I have teeny lacy underpants, size 10-12-31 trousers, a kid who favors Disney Princesses, and a mate who favors baggy boxers!” while everyone and no one hears you?
While my own very ill washer (leaking) and dryer (thermostat awry) await mechanical intervention, I have no choice but to sample local “Laundro-culture.”  And I think in some perverse way, I dig it.  It is time for me that's also justified family time (I am, after all, cleaning his boxers and her nightgowns, right?)
In other words, after I plunk my quarters in at the Lighthouse Laundry on Pearl Street, I get to romp to The Bull (what we like to call the North Tacoma El Toro in my household) and have a cocktail.  I chose Sangria, which is apparently “Gallo jug red and marg mix.” â€" and pretty tasty, worth all $3.50 it costs. I sense, the dryer awaits, and return to the Laundromat, flinging lace and cotton and towels and denim toward the three huge dryers that will impart their scorched smell and sweet dryness upon my laundry.
And then, because I can, sans kid, I go to the bookstore nearby, Park Bench Books. (5738 N. 26 St. (253) 752 4848).  The place rocks my world. I scan titles: "Wicked, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time," "Size 12 is not Fat," and next to it "32AA" â€" subtitled "Size Does Matter" (ahh, glorious Irony!).  Lastly, a table upon which lie "Tacoma Confidential" (in case I wanted to go deeper into Brame) and "Unlubricated" â€" and I'm overwlelmed, and loving every second as my clothes tumble dry. The super-cool gent worker in the place waits as I find the sticker book to end all sticker books for The Kid, and then suggests the book, "The Birdman and the Lap Dancer" to me.  He says the magic letters, NPR and I say, “MMMM!” and buy it, along with my treasured new Moleskine notebook and the kid thing.
On top of all glories, he throws in these wicked-cool metal passage markers (trust me when I say they rock the literature you have to study and write about!) and says, “They're free, tell me how you like 'em.”
I love 'em, I love laundry, I love life.  It's funny how a wee bit of retail therapy will throw a positive spin on the world. â€"  Jessica Corey-Butler