My day doing the laundry:

The washing machine place I go to could be the worst one in San Francisco. If your lucky, half the machines are working. At best. Today wasn't one of those days.

I bring in three loads- one thing of white, one thing of coloreds (excuse me, clothes of color) and some sheets. Have just enough quarters to get most of it done. Get there on a Monday morning around 11:30 and find that it's unusually busy. Most of the machine's are in use. Find two that I know work and I can use, so put two loads in them, but still have another one to go. Open up at least three or four machines, all are full of water. Finally find one that looks like it works. Put the clothes in, throw in $1.50, hit start, and nothing. Machine doesn't work. $1.50 down the drain. Now I have to wait for one of my loads to finish up so I can have a machine to put my next load in. More importantly, I now need enough quarters to do another wash, plus the dryers, so I'll have to get more money. Naturally, I'm out of cash, so have to go the ATM and break a twenty.

Go home for lunch, then go out to the ATM machine to get money. Now I have to go break the twenty, so I go to the store and buy just enough food to get plenty of one's back but also enough to make it worth my breaking the twenty. Then I head back to the laundry place. This should be easy enough, especially since the place has a change machine. Change machine isn't working.

Go looking to find another change machine. Since I live near a BART station, which has change machines, I head down to the station and try and get three dollars worth of quarters. Get two dollars worth of quarters but a dollar worth of dimes and nickles. Head back to the laundry place, put the sheets in one dryer, grab the other finished load and look for an unused dryer and throw it in. Just as I'm about to put in the money, someone whose washing his clothes dry tells me that the machine's broken. Considering how sucky the laundry place is and how much money I've already thrown away at this place, I believe him.

Look for another dryer. All of the one's that aren't in use look broken except for two. Start putting them one. Guy says that's broken too. Ask him about the other one. Broken. He tells me to wait for him to finish and I can use his.

Couple minutes go by. The guy finishes his laundry, tells me it's all mine and then I start putting my clothes in. The one I thought he had his clothes in looks like it's broken. The coin slot is not only not there, but completely torn out. There's one for the dryer up above, but I swear the guy was using the bottom one. Ask the guy which one to use and he, very nicely, drops what he is doing and tries to figure it out with me. Even though it says "Above Dryer" it's really the bottom one he tells me. Put in a quarter to see what happens and he's right. The bottom machine starts up. Put my clothes in and drop in more money. Then I take the clothes that were sitting in the washer that didn’t work, and put them in a new washer. I'm golden. For now.

Go home, watch some TV, then go pick up the clothes. Realize I'm out of quarters and still have one more dryer run so I go to a corner store and get two dollars with of quarters. Need only a dollar, but you never know. Since we all know, once dollars have been changed into coins, it virtually ceases to be money and is instead just something that sits in your pocket in case you need it, it adds to my total. So far, including items that I bought just so I could make change for a $20, a laundry run that should cost around $5, is now costing me $15.

Get to the laundry place, check the stuff in the dryer. Take out my sheets and put in my clothes of color. Put in 75 cents (twenty minutes) and go get my white clothes. My white stuff is still a little wet, but I'm way past the point of wanting to deal with it, so I start to take it out. As I start to take it out, the dryer that holds my clothes of color stops. Just stops. Like that. Fizzles out as it were. So I quickly throw my white clothes out of the dryer and throw in the rest of my clothes.

Half an hour later, I go to pick up the rest of my clothes. Four hours later, I'm finally done.

So need a job just so I can go back to doing Wash & Fold again and never, ever have to deal with this crap again.

PS- I also learned today that kicking washing machines does not necessarily make them work. Neither does slamming the door closed.