The Man With The Yellow Bag
The other day there was a man in the laundromat wearing a garbage bag. A yellow garbage bag. With no shirt underneath. I know this because yellow garbage bags are most unfortunately not a opaque as I would have liked just then.
I shared a commiserating look with the owner of the establishment and thought it best to leave it alone.
Twas not in the cards for me though I’m afraid. The gentleman decided to use the washer next to mine. Fair enough, I’ve had to deal with stranger strangers. He then asked me for 50 cents to make a phone call. I politely declined as per my earlier post ‘The Line Has To Be Drawn Here’. I further explained that phone calls “only cost 25 cents nowadays and what’s more, the laundromat has a phone that I’m sure they would let you use for free if you asked nicely“. He made no move to use their phone proving my theory that he was lying to me - seems my panhandler theory is proving correct thus far.
He then begins sniffing his bleach. After about a half dozen sniffs I genuinely believe he’s about to drink it. I’m all ready to call 9-1-1 when his eventual experimentation takes a potentially fatal turn when instead he turns to me and asks me to smell his bleach. Again, I politely decline.
My load is now done washing and ready for the dryer so I figure my bout of awkward conversation is over.
Ha.
Returning to the laundromat to retrieve my dry laundry I notice one load is still going while the other is done. As I’m taking my dry laundry out of the dryer and putting it into my special Ikea laundry bag the strange man asks “have you lost a grandmother recently?”
Great, he thinks he’s a psychic.
“Not that I’m aware of” I reply. Just as I’m about to make my escape from crazytown, my second load having finished drying he says “you look like my cousin“. I try to think of a polite reply that would not encourage further conversation but can’t come up with one so I just leave without replying. I had been very patient and treated him like a normal human being despite all evidence to the contrary, I was polite as the entire place watched me converse with the man in the garbage bag I felt I could get away with a wee bit of rudeness.
Just when I thought I might not have anything to blog about on Monday morning…
