Laundry

"Never mind.  I'll do it myself".

Going from meeting to meeting, I find myself with little time
to do the things that I need to do.  Laundry is one of those things.
Give me half a chance, and I enjoy doing the wash, but when
you ask me to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week, and I get
up too late to do it in the morning... it seems as though I
never quite catch up.  Now I am fighting with the hotel, and am
going to fight mean.

To start off, there are only 8 shirts I can wear.  Corps folk are
let - OK, leased - the shirt for the mission.   But no matter who
you are, if you wear your shirt for two days, you are still
down to your last shirt at the end of the second week.

Never get down to the last shirt.  Lesson learned.

Going to the front desk to ask about bulk laundry seemed
to be the best solution.  "Sir, how much does it cost to
run a load of laundry?"

"Around $20.  It is $4 per pound."  I have at least forty pounds.

"And does it come back gold plated?!  Tony (I point) went to
Desert Storm and it didn't cost him that for the year!
You have got to be kidding!"  He answered in a thick accent:

"Never would I lie to you, sir.  What I have quoted is the
going rate for laundry in the area.  If you are looking
to have your shirts dry cleaned, it will be more."

Make a fist.  Make it relax.  Using every technique that will help
you avoid an ugly scene. I am seriously on the verge of a bad
cry.  This essentially costs me a meal's price - one that I will
never get to enjoy.  I ask, "Are there manual washers?"  I am
going to figure out a way to get this done without going in
to debt to do it.  I have been setting aside the quarters, and have,
say, thirty, but I'd rather not ask him for help.  I would gladly say
goodbye to this hotel first.  But I can't show up to work with stains.
Never have.  Never will.  He points in the general direction, and I am
going.... trudging.... towards the stairs.

To spend the next hours washing, when I could be sleeping, well, to
tell you the truth, it is a bit of a relief.  I have been eating
a lot, and not exercising much.  And it would be a
lie to say I haven't stretched the shirts a little with the amount
and richness of the food I am eating.  So it would not
hurt me at all to take an evening away from the table.  And to write...

you.

(yeah.  you got rick rolled.)