The Laundry Room

The laundry room in my apartment building was recently refurbished with fancy new technological technology. We now have these fancy, modern front-loading washers that barely make any noise and dryers with instrument panels that resemble those in the space shuttle.

These new washers and dryers don’t use cash – oh, heavens, no. We now have to use these smart cards which is all well and good. In the laundry room, there’s a little ATM-type of device where you can load your smart card with money, either with an ATM card or with a credit card.

And it never works.

You’d get a message like “unable to make connection” or "temporarily out of service" or "All-natural male enhancement" or something like that.

Well, shouldn’t say, never. It’s worked once during the three times I’ve tried it. The last time, I had already washed my clothes and needed to re-load the card in order to dry them. And it didn’t work. I tried my ATM card, a couple of credit cards, and still, “unable to make connection.”

So, I had to traipse all the way over to the twin building’s laundry room and, fortunately, that one worked. Thank god. Otherwise, I would have been left with a bunch of wet UnderRoos.

Since it was working, I wanted to load my card up with as much money as possible, like about a thousand dollars. After all, who knew when this stupid thing would be working again? I certainly didn’t want to be stuck with a bunch of wet underpants again.

The maximum it would take was fifty dollars.

Yes, all these fancy upgrades can be nice. But like with all technology meant to enhance our lives, sometimes you end up just wanting to beat your underpants against a rock.