Overheard in the Laundromat

The Setting: Wednesday night, 11pm, neighborhood Laundromat

The Characters:

Scruffy Manager: 50 something, graying hair, full gray-ish beard. Disgruntled and annoyed with the crap he has to deal with on a daily basis. Interested in getting the job done. Not overly friendly if he can help it. But open to chatting should the subject matter be to his liking.

Chatty Customer: 50 something, less disgruntled. No facial hair. Really into talking about anything to anyone who will listen. Possibly gay, as he refers to his "partner" often.

Cell Phone Boy: 30 something, slightly over-weight, sloppy clothing. Always on his cell phone and very interested in baseball. He dons a baseball cap and a head-band. it's less about personal style so much as it is about him not knowing what personal style is.

ML: upper mid 20 something, stylish yet casual in her loungewear, glasses and reef thongs. Observes the room, keeps to herself, periodically reading the too-large paperback, Shantaram and intermittently staring off into space.

(begin scene)

(scruffy manager is walking around the Laundromat, cleaning up and removing quarters from the machines. Chatty customer is desperately looking for someone to talk with and begins chatting casually with the scruffy manager. Cell Phone Boy has recently ended a cell conversation about baseball and is now flipping through a newspaper. ML is busy carefully folding and sorting some newly fluffed laundry in the corner.)

Chatty Customer: My partner is in an opera later this week. Do you ever go to the opera?
Scruffy Manager: Yeah, I love the opera. My wife and I used to have season tickets. Last year we saw La Boheme and Carmen.

(ML tries not to openly drop her jaw in surprise at the fact that these two men are discussing opera.)

Chatty Customer: Well my partner is going to be in Aida.
Scruffy Manger: Aida, really? How'd he manage to do that?
Chatty Customer: It has something to do with his wife.

(ML perks up a bit at this point as now it is clear that the Chatty Customer's partner is not a lover.)
Scruffy Manager: Opera is the best. You never see as many beautiful women in one place as when you're at the opera.
Chatty Customer: Yeah, my ex wife used to agree. And now my maybe-girlfriend is worried about what to wear when I take her next week. But maybe I won't take her...she may be my ex girlfriend. We're still trying to figure that out.

Scruffy Manager: (silence...he doesn't want to go down that path)

(ML nods to self, as now she is certain Chatty Customer is not gay.)

Scruffy Manager: Where is Aida playing? Dorothy Chandler?
Chatty Customer: No, somewhere in Orange County.

(Silence. Each goes about their own business for a few minutes.)

Chatty Customer: So I think Aida takes place in Egypt. Or maybe it was Turkey. I am pretty sure it's Turkey. And it was a long time ago! (chuckes to self, he thinks Ancient Turkey is funny)
Cell Phone Boy: (moving from the washers to the dryer area and using said movement as a way to insert himself in the conversation). Actually, I think it was Turkey.
Chatty Customer: Yeah, ancient Turkey. (chuckle, chuckle)

(ML, grimaces as she tries to keep it to herself that Aida does in fact take place in Egypt, and not Turkey. She is determined however to not join the conversation. As listening to these random three men discuss opera in a laundry room late at night is far too interesting to mettle with by participating. ML finishes folding laundry and leaves the men to chat more).

Chatty Customer: The other day I was doing laundry and I took a shirt out of the washer and all these diamonds fell out.
Scruffy Manager: Yeah, I find a lot of diamonds in the washers here. I am not sure if they're real but I take them home to my wife 'cause she always says I don't giver her stuff.

(exit ML, grinning to self)

(end scene)

Ah....you just never know what you're going to encounter in the social plexus that is the Laundromat.