<p>“In the mid 1960s I was in a busy laundromat in Iowa City trying to do five or six loads of clothes… I’d already had sharp words with an old harridan over the number of washers I’d had to use. Now I was waiting for the next round with her, or someone else like her. I was nervously keeping an eye on the dryers that were in operation in the crowded laudromat. When and if one of the dryers ever stopped, I planned to rush over to it with my shopping basket of damp clothes. Understand, I’d been hanging around in the laundromat for thirty minutes or so with this basketful of clothes, waiting my chance. I’d already missed out on a couple of dryers - somebedy’d gotten there first. I was getting frantic… Finally a dryer came to a stop. And I was right there when it did. The clothes inside quit tumbling and lay still. In thirty seconds or so, if no one showed up to claim them, I’d planned to get rid of the clothes and replace them with my own. That’s the law of the laundromat.”</p>
<p>From “Fires” by Raymond Carver.</p>