The biggest washing machine was just under 10 bucks a load....but you could almost put a car in it.   We used the side loaders at $4.75 per load.

Now then there is the FREE DRYER bit.    This took us about 2 hours to figure out.   A twist on truth .... but let's BAck up here abit...

We drive into a parking lot on West 25th Street in Cleveland, Ohio and the area is pretty sketchy.    Vacant buildings, multiculturals cruising about without much purpose, car washing going on in the parking lot with cups of water tossed on the side of the car (efficient!), cell phone sellers whose doors are locked until they inspect you and buzz the door open.  And Vacant Buildings.    And a very cool book seller - Zubal.com (please read the Zubal history!)

So here we are from out of this hood, and interested in every hood, and interested in how to fit in to every hood, and you come in the door of the laundry and there are about 50 or more folks in every stage of personal undress with garments and private stuff and soap and pizza and coins clinking and I couldn't see any employee who would respond to my questions....wow, I am on my own and I am in a laundry mat!    This is Soap Opera Laundry!

the "Free drying" took  me the entire wash cycle and paid dry cycle to fiture out...if you load a washer, and simultaneously load a dryer (with what? man, you didn't bring wet clothes to the laundro mat), then the dryer is free.   If you don't have a washer running at the same time you have a dryer ruinning...you pay for the dryer...I think that's the scam.  But clever ambiguous marketing.  

There was one guy  who had about 10 side loaders monopolized...he had a distant affect to his face, well muscled arms, and a huge amount of clothing stacked on top of the machines.   Was he a street person discharched from Metro who liked the heat in the matt?  Well, it turned out as the clock turned, that he filled all 10 machines with the clothes on the tops of the machines...cleaning out pockets of paper gum wrappers, napkins, ....were the clothes all his? how could that be?   10 machines times $4.75 = $47.50.   Not chump change.   Not metro street guy.   Commercial laundry fella?

I didn't ask.   Too many other questions.   And I was trying to take in-mat photos without disturbing anyone.   Difficult.  I tried an Iphone but that camera means you have to have it in front of your face.   Conspicuous.  Not my style.     

Anyway, the best interchanges with others are spontaneous and inadvertant.   Today's interchange was at the local Post office... More on that story coming..