“John, you ever had a pair of jeans that fit you like no other?” the bald woman in baggy pants said into the phone as her body shook and spittle formed in the corner of her mouth, “Then, John, you know why I’m so FUCKIN’ PISSED that you lost my laundry!”

Ten minutes earlier this same woman had walked into the laundromat I was sitting in and immediately started hassling the nice Asian couple who ran the place.

I didn’t notice her at first, I just heard her voice. And what a voice it was. No doubt finely seasoned with a daily regimen of Pall Malls and booze, she had the pipes of a Glengarry Glen Ross-era Al Pacino.

Her sartorial choices, on the other hand, appeared to be informed by 8th grade skateboarders. Stubby feet were encased in puffy, boat-like sneakers, and a long chain hung from a pair of pants that looked to be fashioned from a shower curtain of denim.

In a perfect world she would have extolled the virtues of a sensational bowel movement, just as Pacino did in that fine film, but she had more important things on her mind. Namely, what happened to 37 pounds of laundry.

Her inquiries about the missing clothes were civil enough at first, but quickly devolved into an odd mix of constant cussing and inappropriate and irrelevant personal information.

She held forth on a number of topics, including: what life was like as a 47-and-a-half-year-old Latina woman on disability, a recent court settlement of six thousand dollars, and a firm belief that the proprietors had both copulated with their mothers. Not surprisingly, this ended up being an unsuccessful form of negotiation. When it became clear she wasn’t going to get anywhere, she screamed for them to get the owner on the phone.

“John, I have the ticket in my hand and my clothes aren’t here,” she yelled after being handed a phone. “How does you do this, John? Listen to me, John, how does you do this?”

The woman averaged three Johns per sentence and seemed to make a point of bookending every phrase with the owner’s name. She whipped herself into a lather in no time, promising law suits and beat downs, and then, inexplicably, began using the name Julio.

Apparently John was unsure how he did it, because the yelling did not let up for another five minutes. The couple stood by quietly, waiting to get their phone back. Finally, mercifully, the conversation came to an end with a “Fuck you, pendejo!”

The woman realized that everyone in the laundromat was paying attention to her insane ranting, and for a second just stood there, taking us all in, then bellowed, “FUCK ALL YA’LL!” and left.

A strained silence lingered in the air. Then the Asian woman said simply, “She crazy,” and went back to her work. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and went back to what they were doing, because really, what else could be said?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 11th, 2008 at 11:23 am and is filed under general. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.