The Last Dryer
A fluorescent-humming coin laundromat on Diversey Avenue in Chicago at 9:43 PM on a Sunday, where every machine is full except one industrial dryer with a handwritten OUT OF ORDER sign taped to it in purple marker.
Double and Bust have exactly one load of soaking wet clothes between them and the last available dryer has a sign on it that looks like it was written by a child — or possibly a very angry adult — in grape-scented marker. The machine's coin slot is unobstructed, the drum spins freely when pushed, and a woman folding towels near the vending machine just said "that sign's been there since March." It is now October. Their Uber home leaves in 38 minutes and neither of them owns a second pair of jeans.
“It's been seven months! That's not a warning, that's a memorial. I'm putting quarters in.”
“Someone took the time to find a grape-scented marker, Double. That's not laziness — that's a person who wanted you to smell the danger.”
The dryer ran flawlessly for 34 minutes straight — even heated better than the working ones — until it dispensed their clothes with a final, triumphant thud and a single purple grape Jolly Rancher that had apparently been rattling around in the drum since March, now permanently melted into the waistband of Bust's only pair of boxers.
Clothes are dry, mission accomplished — that's just a custom waistband now.
I can feel it. It's warm and it smells like grape and I will never forgive you.