Laundry Lady

02.28.08

I met an interesting lady yesterday while doing my laundry late at night. I usually do the laundry as late as possible to avoid people and this lady was there behind the other side talking to herself when I walked in. I couldn’t see her but could only hear her babbling about something. After giving up on trying to see who was and who she was talking to, I went about my business of putting the clothes into the washer. I found out that she was trying to purchase something from the vending machine, this only after hearing the bottle fall down the shaft and onto the bottom catching device. She finally came around the corner and I finally got to see the anticipated unveiling. She was an overweight black woman in her late fifties and handicapped. At first I thought her disabilities were due to her weight problem and irregularly shaped body. She had an oversized ass that stuck out like ears on her hips. She was wearing all black clothes which stuck to her body because her body was bulging out everywhere. She had black tights on but her thighs were like wall columns and she had folds of fat folding over each other almost oozing out of her pants. She shuffled along as she walked passed me and it looked terribly burdening for her to move from one side of the laundry room to the other side. She said hi as she walked by and I greeted her also. I placed all my stuff in and closed the lid, and picked up everything around me and took a glance at her as she moved around her area. She occupied what looked like three washers or four washers. I went out of the room and into the next room where there is a small gym and got onto the elliptical machine and started peddling. The television was on but the sound was very low, which I preferred anyways because I was going to listen to my music. The remote was on my machine and I changed the channel around so that I ended on Conan O’Brian’s show. About ten minutes into my elliptical ling, the lady came into the room pushing what looked like her laundry cart but without any laundry in it. I didn’t blame her because I took my laundry basket and washing detergent into the gym afraid that it might be stolen. She started on some physically machines working her arms and I just went about elliptical ling and looked on at Conan. Eventually she started to approach towards my direction by pushing her black cart along with her. That was when I noticed that it wasn’t a laundry cart at all but a stroller walker for handicaps. She came next to the machine to my left and was looking at the television. I offered her the remote saying that I wasn’t watching anything and she could do whatever she wanted. She said she just wanted the volume louder. It took her awhile to find the button and then she started changing the channel and going through the channel display menu to find out what was on. I helped her with the page down button showing her how to navigate the channel display menu pages. All this time I was still peddling on the elliptical machine and she settled into a recumbent bike next to me and also onto a news station channel. When I looked up I saw that it was FOX news, damn! Why did I let her change the channel. The news broadcast was talking about the primaries and candidates again. Being FOX news, I wanted to get out as fast as possible and wished that my wash was over by now, but unfortunately, I still had ten minutes. She started the conversation. She asked if I liked it here. I thought she was talking about the apartment and said it was okay and that I’ve been here for three years. What she meant, I later found out, was if I liked Chicago. She first asked if I lived here, and I said yes, and then asked if I liked it here. So I assumed that she was referring to the apartment complex. Anyway we got much further on because she was that talker type, and I was just the person who made grunting sounds and nods. Apparently for the last year since April she was paralyzed with both her legs and her arms. She was in a terrible traffic accident and was now having physical therapy along with medical help and surgeries at Northwestern University. She had all kinds of problems allergically reacting to medicines she was taking and also not being able to lift her arm passed a certain level. She talked about how difficult it was for her to brush her hair and when she talked she had a croaking, somewhat, crackling voice. It turns out she had to go through speech therapy too to get her voice back, which was now stronger and better. It must have been a terrible accident and it took place just last year. What I found out was that she was from New York upstate near Buffalo. I did a double take and wondered why she was here in Chicago, since traveling must be difficult with her disabilities. Her accident and health cost were being covered by her auto insurance and not by her health care. The health care in Buffalo was terrible she said, and she told me horror stories about how they mistreated her symptoms and caused her more issues so now she is in Chicago for proper care. The television showed a picture of Hillary Clinton in action, talking about health care and the Nafta program. She said that that women (Clinton) did nothing for health care. The health care was so poor in Buffalo where she lives at, and the city was poor in general and needed a lot of state funding and help. She’s a New Yorker and knows what Clinton did as a senator, or as she said, didn’t do as a senator. I couldn’t figure out how she could afford living in Buffalo while also living in Chicago in a pricy apartment in River North, getting medical help, and having a child in college living in fancy apartment in Westwood California. She has a daughter in film studies almost ready to graduate this year, who also lives in the most expensive part of Los Angeles other than Beverly Hills or Bel Air section. As I gather more and more information from her, or she voluntarily gave them to me, it turns out that she is pretty well off. You couldn’t tell by what she was wearing or how she was acting in general, but her husband is a medical doctor and she used to live in Stanford Connecticut, another ritzy place. What finally impressed me was who she was affiliated with. She said that she was at Hilary’s fund raiser and how she was involved with it and all into that political stuff, but she ended up not voting for Hillary at the end, but her husband did. She did vote for Hillary when Hillary was running for the senate seat. She also was invited to the second inauguration of Bill Clinton, and get this; she receives Christmas cards from Al Gore. I was impressed. I looked at her stroller walker and on it was a little blue book that was titled “The 10 Minute Bible.” I felt sorry for her, thinking that she was trying to become a quick believer now that situations were rough. She could have always been a believer, as well, and this was fun reading material. My time was well passed the wash cycle 30 minute allotted time. I got off the elliptical machine, and she slowly followed, getting off of the bike. I opened the door for her four times in total: out of the gym, into the laundry room, out of the laundry room, and back into the gym. She’ll be doing laundry all night till two in the morning she said and looked puzzled at me as she saw me carrying my wet, washed clothes out the laundry room. She asked if I wasn’t going to dry them. I told her I didn’t dry my clothes in the dryer and just spread it all over my room and it all dries up by the morning since the temperature was set in the mid seventies in my room. She nodded and said good idea and moved into the gym pushing the walker slowly forward. I said goodbye. Her name was Marianne. She lives on the eighth floor. I live on the seventh. Hopefully our paths will cross again.