Yuh Know?

It was late and I was tired. I had no choice but to fold my clothes that I just rubbed my face on to keep warm that I just took out of the dryer. The television was blaring the discovery channel while I dreadfully folded. Cara was taking her clothes out of the dryers and as she was she would fold them. I just throw them all in and fold them at the table. Cara’s daughter was running around the entire Laundromat, making us nervous. Lia is the cutest little girl who you just want to squeeze the shit out of her. OK not literally! Cara’s husband was walking in an out of the Laundromat, he wasn’t feeling well so he decided he wanted to go home.

“Simon! Simon!” Lia called her father by his first name.

“I miss you!” Lia said with the warmest eyes looking up at Simon “I miss you!”

“I miss you too!”

She says the craziest things at particular moments. Lia is a friendly little girl, who trusts everyone and I mean strangers too. It’s cute, but at the same time dangerous. We live in a suspicious world and it’s hard to judge people.

“Lia! NO!, stop touching the ladies bag.” She didn’t listen to me as she attempted to grab the bag again.

“LIA!!! I SAID NO!” She ignored me and put her hand in the woman’s brown paper bag. Simon yelled at her and grabbed her slightly brushing his hand on her face as he went to smack her hand.

“Lia, you don’t do that, it’s not nice. You have to listen.”

The woman sitting on the plastic bench with her small paper bag in her hand says “Oh, its okay, she didn’t mean any harm by it.”

I was embarrassed and horrified. I hate when Lia doesn’t listen to me, she does it all the time. She hears you but she’s not listening. Cara gets all nervous when Lia doesn’t like listening to her. She loses her patience and let’s out a little cry.

“She drives me crazy.”

“She’s only a little girl Cara, but she really needs to start listening. I wonder how she’ll do when she finally goes to school.”

Lia just wants to do her own thing and maybe it has to do with how cute she is, she thinks she can get away with it. I think at times she’s afraid of me because I’m very stern with her and don’t let her get away with anything. I can’t help it, I love her like if she’s my own niece. I feel that I need to discipline her, it’s just the way I am with all children.

Simon tells Lia to put her coat on that she’s going home with Daddy.
Lia doesn’t listen. Cara finally gets Lia in her coat and gives her a kiss on her cheek and hands her over to her husband.

“I’ll see you later.”

“Oh, it’s fine, it’s OK, she recognizes me, it’s not like she’s never seen me before. Yuh know?”

This woman was still sitting on that cheap plastic bench watching the discovery channel. She felt that she needed to express herself to me. Why? Because she was drunk!. She kept her coat on and held on to her small brown paper bag as if it was keeping her warm. What did she mean by she recognizes me? Does this woman think she’s seen Lia before and a different time or is it just her being drunk? I think DRUNK.

“If I had two sodas, I would have given her one, but I don’t have two sodas.”

“Oh that’s OK. She doesn’t need any soda, she already had some before with her pizza.”

“Yeah I’m waiting for my food here, it’s from that Italian place across the street.”

I noticed that I really couldn’t understand her slurs especially over the damn loud ass television that was broadcasting murders in France that they were investigating. Three women were killed on a train in a matter of three months, well that’s what I think they said, three months. I was lazy, I didn’t feel like folding my clothes. I was wishing for a miracle, for a fairy to come down and wave her fairy dust and poof they were folded. I didn’t want to hear about anymore deaths. I was really depressed about it all. Today, I saw the number 80,000. That’s the amount of all the dead people from Tsunami. The last thing I wanted to watch while folding my clothes was the investigation of true murder cases. They would reenact the entire story line of all three murders and show the dead bodies.

“That’s terrible, the man who killed these women. Yuh know?”

I just nodded my head. Why me?? Why did this drunken woman have to strike up a conversation with me when all I wanted to do was go home and lay in my bed and tell the whole world to fuck off for the night? I sort of felt bad for her though. She looked lonely and I guess she just felt the need to have a conversation to make her feel better. She had salt and pepper hair up to her shoulders. It was so frizzy, it made her half up pony tail look messy. Her face was bare without any make up. The lines in her face seemed to tell stories.

“I’m 59 pushing 60.”

My goodness my mom is older than that and this woman makes my mom look like she’s a kid. We spoke about the murders on the television. I had said how there is no way you can trust anyone and it’s just not safe out there.

“I know Lia, didn’t mean any harm, but you have to teach her not to trust everyone out there especially strangers, you never know what they can do.”

“Yeah I know, yuh know? When I was a teenager things were bad, but it’s worse now. When I was young I use to be a swimmer, yuh know? I swam all the time. I would pay a few dollars and go in a pool all night, yuh know? I’ve always had…”

I interrupted her. “Ear infections?”

“Yeah yuh know? It must have been all those children going in the pool, yuh know? Do you like watching old movies? Yuh know?

“Yeah I like classic movies, don’t get around to doing it though, who has time?”

She started to name some actors. I really couldn’t catch them with her slur, she wouldn’t stop talking.

As she pointed into her bag the drunken woman said, “If I had two sodas I would have given her one, but I don’t think she could have this beer.”

“Oh no, not beer.”

“Cara this woman is drunk.”

“Holy shit she is?”

“Yup and Lia had her hand in her bag.”

“Uhh I’m going to kill that little witch.”

“She only a little kid, hopefully when she goes to school she won’t have that problem.”

“Yeah and the teacher better teach her how to be good.” I and Cara laughed. We disappeared into our own little conversation and the drunken woman started to talk to the Laundromat worker. He stood behind a plastic booth, it seemed like if he was hiding in a bullet proof booth, what the heck was he scared of? He never came out of there, the carts were all over the place, he didn’t keep the place systemized. The drunk woman had her red scarf on and the only thought that came to my mind was that her food must be cold by now being here for 2 hours and it waiting for her at the Italian place across the street and then I thought wow she’s getting ready to leave I hope she’s OK, yuh know?