Irritated People

A recent situation brought a situation from the past to mind, something I will never forget.

I was driving a belly-dump up north, in Flagstaff.  A bridge was being built over the railroad - which was much more of an ordeal than I figured it should have been, but whatever.  The company was paying for a hotel room and some amount of per-diem.

Well, being up there all the time meant doing my laundry at the hotel's laundromat.  When I use a hotel laundromat, I keep track of the time it is going to take to both wash and dry the clothing so I will be there when it's done and get it out of the washer and into the dryer or out of the dryer and back into my possession.

Well, it happened. One night, I had a load in the dryer. I had the time down on to when it was going to be done, but I had gone in there 5 minutes previous to check.  Yup, it was about 5 more minutes until it was done.  I had noted that a load of clothes was running in the washing machine and it was about done, not my laundry.

I left and came back about 8 minutes later.  I found my dried, clean clothing strewn on the floor and the person who had their clothes in the washer now in the dryer.  I became infuriated.  There was absolutely no reason for this person to throw my clothes on the floor.  If it had been me, well I would have waited longer for one thing and if that person that owned the clothes didn't resurface, I would have put them on top of the machine, not thrown them on a dirty floor.

I actually do not regret, even to this day, what I did next.  I took my cleaned/now floor-soiled clothing to my hotel room and then I came back to that laundry room, took that dude's still very wet clothing out of that machine and threw it all OVER the place.

I went back to my room but later went to the office to ask for something I didn't have that they could give me.  I don't remember what it was at this point, otherwise I would be more specific.  They mentioned the man whose clothing was strewn all over the floor come storming into that office, yelling about someone who had thrown their clothing out of the dryer onto the floor.

Was there a video surveillance camera I didn't know about? I politely responded that that person probably should have come into the office and asked for a plastic trash bag, at the very least, before throwing someone else's clean and almost dried clothing on the floor himself after removing clothing that didn't belong to him from the dryer.  I was unapologetic and still am.

I am not going to ask what you would do if you found your clean clothes found strewn on the floor in a laundromat.  Some that read will condemn me, even if in thought only.  I "should have" done this or that.  Who cares.  You don't know what you will do in any given situation until you are presently and physically exposed to it and experience the emotion that comes with it.