It’s been 6 days in my 21 day journey, and I knew the time had come. I needed to go to a laundromat. This is something I have avoided when travelling. I think it’s been awhile since I travelled for an extended amount of time and wasn’t visiting family or friends. It’s not an irrational fear to avoid public laundromats in foreign countries while travelling. There was a reason. Years ago, I was robbed. Yes, in my twenties while backpacking Europe for three months, a friend and I went to a laundromat in Florence. I didn’t think much of it as I stuffed my clothes in a machine, I must have only placed my wallet down for 2 minutes. When I looked back, it was gone. Gone was the money and credit cards, but luckily the passport was in the hotel. I was so grateful my friend Crystal was travelling with me during this portion of the journey. It was a three month solo backpacking trip, but for two different portions, I met up with friends. We could lean on Crystal’s credit cards, until I could wait for a replacement card to be sent to the next hotel. Ever since then, I avoid public laundromats at all costs while travelling.
But I was now in Italy again in the middle of summer. My clothes were quite disgusting of discovery days full of sweat. The hotel didn’t have a laundry service. I had no other choice. This was the prime time to do laundry, I was on the chilled out island of Lampedusa. I didn’t dare do laundry in Naples, where I was returning to. And so viola, I headed to the laundromat.
Although it was only 930 am, it was already in the 90s. I was filled with sweat on my walk, and upon arrival at the laundromat I noted all were full. There were three machines, one was broken, and two were in use. I would wait for the remaining 17 minutes. First I waited inside, but there was no air circulation, I could only feel the hot air of the machines doing their jobs. One woman folded her laundry, with a hair wrap to keep the sweat from her face. We commented on the heat, her in Italian, me in pantomime.
This was my opportunity to reframe the experience. I brought a book to read as I used my Spanish abanico to cool me down. This wouldn’t be so bad. Eventually the time came for me to load the wash, and after I did, I sat outside waiting for the time to pass. Another woman sat outside with me waiting for her load in the dryer. She wore all white, a white fitted tee shirt and white ripped jeans that seemed to have a faint stain of coffee in the back. I had seen her earlier on the phone, talking to someone on the phone. It was most probably her husband, as she rolled her eyes in desperation and leaned over a table looking exasperated. I don’t know if her dramatic attempts were for me, if she thought her partner could see this on the phone, or it was the only way to act out with her partner in public privacy.
There were many older men hanging in the streets at this hour. I wondered if they were there because it was yet to be high noon and stores were open, or they left their homes so the women could do the house work. Maybe one of those men was her husband. This could be why this woman was acting over the top, she felt I could relate to her experience as a woman doing laundry in a hot laundromat on a Sunday.
We sat on a bench outside, she offered a cigarette. I politely declined, but thought to myself “how Italian.” We are cleaning our clothes so they can smell fresh and clean, but her laundry would then be folded with her nicotine covered hands.
I appreciated her warm gesture of the cigarette, perhaps she wanted to connect in the only way she knew how due to the disparity in our verbal communication. Maybe I should have taken the cigarette, even though I don’t smoke, to accept her kindness. This was a corrective experience from my previous Italian theft laundromat story. Now it was a moment of connection with a stranger, we sat commiserating in the heat, two women waiting for our laundry on a Saturday afternoon.
It Only Takes A Smile 