Sunday, March 13, 2011

The Super Coin Laundry / Wash and Fold

      I live near Dufferin and Queen in one of the early loft conversions. I have lived here for almost twelve years. The mattress factory across the street is now a dance studio. The two story printing business is now a three story sound studio. Some of the homeless and other marginal people have moved on or died. Dufferin itself has been straightened in an engineering feat that was as annoying to listen to as it was fascinating to observe. If it's a nice day and I have my windows open I know when TFC scores a goal. On any kind of day with my windows closed I can hear the Indy cars when they are racing. I can hear the Queen street car trundling by if I happen to wake up in the middle of the night.To me streetcars are a comforting sound.     
     After I bought the loft and put my bed up on stilts I went shopping for an apartment sized washer. I couldn't afford a dryer and I wasn't sure I had the space. Even with all the gentrification going on on Queen West there's still the second hand appliance shops around Dovercourt, on the north side. That's not Parkdale but back then there weren't any second hand appliance stores near me. There is now right next to the Islamic brotherhood temple at Queen and Brock on the south side. So I bought my apartment sized washing machine and you know what, I am challenged by a lot of things and I am  particularly inept when it comes to folding clothes. Then the machine leaked and I had my neighbour banging on my door. Thankfully the darn thing cacked out on me.
     On the south west corner of Dufferin and Queen there's a small plaza. The hair dressing salon has been there since I moved into the neighbourhood, the ESL place as well and the Super Coin Laundry. The SCL is run by an ex ROK army guy by the name of Han who is a serious futbol fan. He has an able assistant by the name of Lee who happens to be Caucasian and has a good repertoire of dumb jokes. The first time I took my clothes over there I thought, well, I just can't afford the luxury. I picked my clothes up the next day and when I got home and unpacked the garbage bag my jaw dropped. It was like every piece of clothing had just come out of the plastic wrapper. I set the clothes down on my table and you didn't need a carpenter's square to tell you there was some was serious folding going on here. The bonus was the clothes were nice and clean.
     So a moth walks into the dentist's office and he says to the dentist, you know my wife just left me for another moth and cleaned out the bank account, I'm broke and I'm about to become homeless. The dentist says well that's terrible, but this is a dentist's office, maybe you need to see a councillor of some kind. The moths says well probably but I was just passing by and I saw your light was on.

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