Dirty Laundry
Having a washer that really wasn’t built to handle a large bed comforter, I asked my husband to drop me off at the local laundromat while he ran a few errands in town. I’d already figured out the hard way (hey, it was worth a shot) that my average sized washer wasn’t equipped to deal with the oversized load that I expected it to carry. After stuffing that extra-large comforter into my washer, using the weight of my entire body to do so, and leaving no room for even air, I selected the heavy load setting, trusting that my nearly twenty-year-old washer was fully capable of handling what I expected it to. Let’s just say, it wasn’t. An hour later, I found that my washer had danced its way across my laundry room floor, leaving a puddle of water in its wake. A bit concerned over the fact that I’d caused my washer to pee itself, I knew that I would need my husband’s help in getting that very wet and now much heavier comforter to the laundromat. Thankfully, my husband was more than willing to do the heavy lifting, and for my part, I valiantly opened the laundromat door for him while he carried that wet, massive comforter inside for me.
Noticing only one other person in the laundromat doing laundry, I headed straight to the industrial sized washers, taking note that only two of them seemed to be in working order. The others had “out of order” signs taped to the front. My husband started zealously stuffing the extra-large comforter into a machine that appeared to be working.
“I need to add the detergent first,” I said to him, stepping aside as he pulled the comforter back out of the machine, giving me the opportunity to add my laundry pods and scent boosters into the washer. With the detergent in place, and my husband tossing the comforter back inside the machine, I opened the plastic container that I’d brought some quarters in. Seeing the $7.00 price, I started feeding the machine, trying to keep track of the number of quarters that I was dropping into the slot. It was at that point when a woman came into the laundromat, heading straight to the only other working large capacity washer, next to the one that my comforter was now occupying.
“Are you using this,” she asked my husband who was partially blocking the washer that she was hoping to use.
“No,” he answered her question, before stepping out of the way. This is just about the time when I realized that the washer that I was using wasn’t accepting my quarters.
“Something isn’t working, I can’t tell how many quarters I’ve added to the machine,” I said to my husband, as he reached over to hit the coin return button, causing the quarters to drop from the slot where I’d just inserted them. To my left, the woman was preparing to place her laundry inside the only other working large capacity machine, just at about the same time a laundromat employee asked my husband if there was a problem with the machine that we were attempting to use.
It was then that the woman, who’d been at the laundromat when we first arrived, walked over to tell the laundromat employee that the machine hadn’t been working the previous day when she herself had tried using it.
Hearing the conversation, the newly arrived patron to my left asked if the machine that she had planned on using was working. The answer to her question was “yes, it was working.”
Feeling a bit annoyed, I watched as the woman who’d arrived after me, started loading her laundry into the only working industrial machine. For one crazy millisecond, I hoped that she’d step aside, offering me the use of that extra-large washer.
“Did you already add your laundry detergent,” the laundromat employee asked me, distracting me momentarily from the realization that no one was going to step aside for me to wash my comforter.
“Yes,” I answered unable to hide the frustration in my voice, watching as the woman to my left continued loading the only working machine capable of handling my comforter.
If you’ve ever been in a long line waiting to be checked out, and hear the words, “I can help someone over here,” then you know the frustration of watching helplessly as the last person in your line, rushes toward that newly opened cash register, leaving you unable to move in the mass of other people who have been waiting alongside you to get checked out. You suddenly find yourself in a competition of sorts, trying to act like it doesn’t matter that the line cutter has already made their purchase and is heading out the door, with what appears to be a smug smile on their face. You start shifting nervously, anticipating the possibility of making a run for the shorter line, but decide that everyone else around you is thinking the same thing, and so you stay right where you’re at.
This is where I’d like to give a shout out to those stores who corral people in a single line, giving no one the opportunity to cut in line. Instead, it’s a first come first serve deal with everyone waiting to hear those welcoming words of, “I can help whose ever next.”
Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a Kohl’s, Marshalls or T.J. Maxx department store, and there was no chivalrous act happening to me in that laundromat. I may have been the first one there, but it seemed that I was going to be the last one out. With my frustration apparently in full blown mode, the original laundromat patron seemed to take pity on my husband and me by stepping forward and suggesting that we try using one of the smaller machines.
With errands to run, my husband quickly grabbed the comforter from the non-working machine while I tried scooping scent boosters from the broken washer. Muttering under my breath about being there first, I followed my husband’s path to another much smaller washer, trying not to make eye contact with the line cutter.
Still a bit perturbed, I stopped at the machine where my husband stood waiting for me, and listened to the woman who’d led him there, as she told us how she’d managed to stuff her living room rug into one of those smaller machines.
“It came out clean, and smelling really good,” she offered, trying to make me feel better for losing out on the larger machine. Thanking her profusely for being kind enough to step forward to help us, I watched as my husband added quarters to the machine, breathing a sigh of relief as the washer started filling up with water.
As my husband left to do his errands, I sat down in a chair, as far removed from the line cutter as I could be, and started reading a book that I’d brought with me.
Trying to keep my thoughts on what I was reading, I felt the familiar nudging of the Holy spirit, there to remind me that I’d allowed myself to become frustrated with a situation that was very much out of my control. I hadn’t acted very Christlike. That exacerbated sigh I’d given was proof of that. I had allowed someone else’s inconsideration negatively affect my attitude.
Although I must admit, as much as I wanted to think that I deserved the use of that working machine more so than the woman who’d arrived after me, I knew that I didn’t. Yes, I’d gotten there first, but I’d chosen the wrong machine, and in that choice, God taught me a lesson. My Christianity and attitude cannot be dependent upon the negative situations that I find myself in. Everyone has a right to God, not some of us, but all of us. It doesn’t matter who gets there first, God only cares that we eventually get there.
20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius[a] a day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, 4 and to them he said, ‘You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.’ 5 So they went. Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. 6 And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, ‘Why do you stand here idle all day?’ 7 They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’ 8 And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.’ 9 And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. 10 Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. 11 And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?’[b] 16 So the last will be first, and the first last.” (Matthew 20:1-16)
With my lesson learned, I left that laundromat with a very clean comforter, and the awareness that the line cutter was still doing laundry. With a smile on my face I realized, that although I’d started off in the longer line, I ended up in the shorter one…