Random thoughts for random people

Doing Laundry

I normally take my laundry to a friendly guy, who lives in a run down shack, located in an alley near by. He charges 5 baht (15 cents) per item, underwear and socks are free. This includes, washing, drying folding, and, ironing. Service usually takes 1 - 2 days, and despite the fact that I could barely find his place last time, I've been pretty content with my laundry so far.

Today, however, since I had more spare time and wanted to get some readings done for class tomorrow, I decided to do my own laundry. Down the same run down alley is a small laundromat with three Fuzzy Novo branded washing machines. I traded in my bills for some change... and proceeded to the washing machines. I couldn't read the instructions.. but this is laundry how difficult could it get? The next thing I know, the guy next to me starts pointing at my machine... and begins to speak thai to me. I just smiled and nodded, and hoped that whatever I was agreeing to was right. How wrong I was... he continued to speak Thai to me, his voice got louder, and more frantic... which made me worried... the old lady who had gave me change earlier ran to my machine... took a glance at it, and than at me... she had a confused look on her face, similar to the look that my BUS 442 professor had after a student asked her a question. Now I was really worried... but thankfully, it was nothing more than the fact that I had put the detergent in the barrel instead of the designated slot , and that I was leaving my machine running without any clothes in it. So the old lady, who was perhaps half my size helped me to quickly throw my clothes in the machine.

All the commotion had attracted the old lady's middle age daughter... who thankfully knew a handful of english. I really liked her, because she reminded me of my mom...she was really sweet, and we had a nice conversation. She introduced me to her 9 year old son, who looked no older than a five year old, as he was so skinny, and small that if he were to turn sideways, he would have disappeared. He wore a baggy glue shirt, and oversized pants, that I'm guessing are hand me downs from his 13 year old brother. His mother wanted me to teach him english for one month, and was even willing to pay me. Given their apparent modest income, I couldn't bare to take any money from her, so I offered to teach the son English for free.

I met a few other interesting characters at the laundry mat, the lady knew each of them, and introduced me to them. It was strange listening to her talk about me in Thai... I could only pick out a few words... like Canada, Chula (my school here), and ma dai thai (she speaks no thai). Most people who have met me so far (locals, and thais) are surprised to find out that I'm from Canada, and to find out that I don't know Thai at all. They always say "same same" to me, and point to themselves, indicating that I look like them... to which I just giggle, and nod.

posted by knee-ohm @ 7:03 AM