Laundry Part II

I almost catch her red handed this time. I hear the tell-tale clink of the washing machine lid closing just before I open the door. There she is standing in front of the dryer.

"Hello." I say.

"Hi." she replies.

I open up the washing machine, and sure enough, my clothes are not stuck centrifically to the walls of the basin, but have been sifted through. She doesn't say anything to either deny or support this situation.

She's folding clothes on top of the dryer, but has a load in the dryer as well. I'm going to have to bring my clothes to another floor now. I've forgoten my hamper, so I run back into the appartment and grab it. She's still folding clothes.

I just want her out of my way. I offer her the use of my hamper so that she'll leave the laundry room.

"Yeah, that'd be okay, I really need to buy one of those, where do you get them from?" she asks.

"Pretty much any store that isn't a grocery store."

She takes everything out, even the things that are in the dryer and still sopping wet. Weird, but suits my needs fine. I throw my clothes in the dryer.

"I come out and check my clothes every 20 minutes now," she says, "I don't trust anyone in this building with my clothes anymore."

"I just use a timer. You can pick them up at the dollar store for a dollar, then you don't have to keep track."

"Oh really, where do you get those?"

"The dollar store."

"Oh okay, I'm going to go buy one right now!"

I go back to my appartment.

Half an hour later we're ready to leave (my girlfriend's brother is in town and stayed the night along with her best friend). We go into the hallway and my neighbor is standing out there over a large amount of Tide laundry soap that has been spilled all over the hallway.

"Oh jeez, these things always happen to me. The bottom of the box gave out and spilled all over the carpet. I don't have a vacuum." She says, scooping the tide up off the carpet with a pyrex measuring cup. Needless to say this method wasn't very efficient and is spreading soap all over the carpet.

"I wouldn't worry about it, the caretaker is going to vaccuum tomorrow anyways."

"Oh really? My vacuum broke, I'm going to have to get a new one, but they're so expensive."

"You can get one at the (salvation army) for about $10 usually, it's not going to be the best thing in the world but it'll do fine for an appartment."
Then she gets into the elevator with us. She has her back to the wall, and we can see the drool chap marks trailing down her jowl creases. She's still got the scabs on her cheek bones. She's puckering her lips in an eliptical movement like she's grinding something with her front teeth.

I forget what the rest of the conversation went like, but she gets off and asks the caretaker for his vaccuum. The soap was gone when we came home so I'm sure they figured something out.