The Old Lonely

There’s really nothing that cranks up my awkwardness meter more than talking with an old person. Every time I find myself in an old person conversation I panic and don’t respond to them as I’m using all my brain power to get the fruck out of there. I got into another one of these recently, which turned out more awkward than most. Possibly because my hatred for shared laundry situations, added on to my hatred for talking nonsense with old people.

Let me paint you a picture. The shared laundry facility in my building is miserable and depressing. It’s down in the basement in some cramped, sticky floored room. We also have to share three washers and three dryers in a 28 apartment building. I will say, however, that it’s gotten significantly better since the Mexican family of 15 moved out of their two bedroom apartment. Let’s not forget the times that the majority of the machines are broken down, or the one time none of the dryers worked. Add to that the fact that nobody takes their clothes out in a timely manner. Partially wet clothes have sat in the dryer for a day and a half all the while five minutes after the dryer is done for me, someone takes out all of my clothes and puts them on top of the dryer so they can use it. If I was strong enough I’d throw the dryer through a cliff.

Now that you know the usual heated mindset I’m in while doing laundry, let’s pile on the old man business. Usually when I hear someone else in the laundry room I say “fuck it” and go back to my apartment. On this day, however, I had just got done lifting weights and decided to try and intimidate someone out of my way. When I walked in I saw an old man who basically blurted out “I’m retired” as soon as he saw me. Then I probably made the worst mistake of my life and decided to engage this man in a conversation.

The conversation started out pretty awesome actually. It was basically just me going off on a five minute rant about how shitty our laundry situation is and him chuckling. I started to see the dawn of a weird/awkward friendship. It all started to go downhill when he began talking. He didn’t even say anything that ridiculous, it’s just that he took the spotlight off of me and turned it on himself. Plus, after my award winning rant he didn’t give me a round of applause or money, which is complete bullshit.

This old man just kept talking and wouldn’t stop. He was apparently in no hurry as he was taking his laundry out of the washer one piece at a time, folding it, and the delicately placing it in the dryer. I tried my usual escape technique by saying, “Yeah, I know that game” then slowly backing out of the room just to end it, but he kept looking up at me while I was trying to escape. There was one point where I was out in the hall, with only my head in the doorway trying to show him that I’m leaving. I ended up standing like that for about ten minutes.

Finally, I got the hell out of there and back up to my safe haven, thinking it was over, but I was mistaken. As I went to switch over my clothes I could hear the sounds of an old man from all the way down the hall. That old bitch was in the laundry room again! This time I used a preemptive trick called the “fake cell phone conversation”. It worked beautifully and I got out of there with only having to give up a half hearted wave. The fake cell phone is my favorite of all snubs. It’s great for getting by chatty old people, attractive girls that you’re too afraid to talk to and fallen old people who I don’t want to help because they don’t look rich.

Tags: laundry room, lonely

Category: General Posts