Pure unadulterated irritation

We know that Abby has to use a laundromat to achieve clean clothes. Well, I can (and do) occasionally use a bucket, but for real laundry...it's the laundromat.

I used to use the Outdoor Laundromat, which is kind of exotic and interesting, while at the same time maintaining the tradition of tackiness that's so important to such businesses. However, the combination of biting insects, inefficient dryers and some really creepy clients moved me a couple of miles to City Wide Laundry.

City Wide changed owners last fall. A younger gentleman bought the place, spruced it up and kept it clean and in good order. He appeared to have just one employee, an old fat woman. City Wide takes in laundry as well as offering facilities to do your own, so both Young Guy and Fat Lady were always busy. Normally, they managed to do client laundry and keep the place tidy while staying out of the way of those there to wash clothes. They were chatty - it was a pretty good place to do laundry.

So I started going there. I spend anywhere from $12 (if it's just me here) to $35 (all three kids, towels, beach towels, bedding) per trip.

My last visit was last Friday during the day. It seemed there was a new employee. A younger gal, quite pudgy, rabbit-mouthed, coke-bottle glasses, red hair, perpetually stunned look. She was obviously still figuring out the required rhythm of the place - she had laundry stalled in several stages and was slowing down the whole process.

That was not the problem. Her child was the problem. It took me a few minutes to figure out that the slightly Hispanic-looking small boy (maybe 3?) racing around the building, screaming, touching things, climbing on folding tables, pushing carts and generally being underfoot, belonged to her.

After a while, a Puerto Rican guy showed up (I know he's Puerto Rican because it says so on his tricked-out Honda Civic). Ahhh, I thought, here's Dad to pick the little bugger up! Well, no. Here was Dad, with McDonald's bags. Passing out lunch led to the wee little beastie continuing all his earlier rampaging, but with a fucking hamburger that he seemed to enjoy smearing on every available surface. After lunch, Dad proceeded to hang out with a buddy in the parking lot while El Nino carried on terrorizing the laundromat.

I was pissed. But I wrote it off. I'm like Gandhi that way. You know...easy-going.

But then I returned today. Same setup, minus the hamburger but with more patrons. Well, and add it an elderly couple on bicycles that I can only assume were Mr. Puerto Rico's parents. It was a regular old family get-together at the laundromat. Fuckkit. I'm taking my average of $22 a week and going elsewhere. I don't need that shit.

C'mon, people. I don't like your children. I don't think they're cute, and I don't like to have them pestering around while I'm trying to do something.

I don't bring a 12-pack of beer and carton of cigarettes to Chuck E. Cheese, then sit around cleaning my guns in the middle of the Skee-ball games. Why do you do the reverse?

Seriously. There's a Kid World, and a Grownup World, and an Everybody World. Friendly's, Red Robin, Chuck E. Cheese, Disney World and the like make up Kid World. WalMart, McDonald's, parks, zoos and beaches fall into Everybody World. The rest of the country is Grownup World.

I'm not saying kids shouldn't appear in Grownup World, but it's our world, and they're guests in it. If I see your kid in grownup world, I assume you're socializing him. Which means I am counting on you to snatch that little rugrat up by the collar and square him away if he's racing around in the bank. I expect to see the white-knuckled-forearm-pinch coupled with the Mom Look Of Death when Junior is getting his tantrum on at Jiffy Lube.

I'm going to make this real simple. Kids are fine. They're certainly necessary, since we can't have grownups forever without having some kids around. But childhood is a transitory state. It's a process. The goal is to get them through childhood and into adulthood.

So Kid World needs to stay over there on the other side of the tracks. Grownup World needs to remain just that - a place you take your kids to teach them to be grownups. Workplaces, business and the like are not fucking Gymboree. Stop it.

Good lord. I'd go to the Green Iguana and have a drink, but I'm concerned it might be "cartoon and balloon day."