Difficult Music

Tailspin Cycle
I bought a little book by Bruce Robinson called Paranoia in the Launderette at Word on the Street on Sunday. Two bucks well spent. When I say “little” book, I’m serious—3 x 4 inches, 45 pages. A booklet. I started it on the bus this morning. I love it when something I read makes me laugh. I hate it when I’m in public and all I can allow myself is a slight smile.

Robinson, he of Withnail & I fame, finds filth and embarrassment funny. So do I, at least to read about. There’s also something funny about people who are both devastatingly articulate and incompetent. This book is narrated by such a chap. When I left him, he was trying to negotiate his local launderette. I can relate. I’ve been to our laundromat probably 10 times, but I’m buggered if I can remember how everything works. Each time I go now, I watch the belter more carefully, trying to remember when the soap goes in, what orifice on the machine we pour it into, what temperature setting to use, how many quarters to put into the dryers, and so on.

Oh, I’ve done my own laundry before. I’m just not used to doing it in a facility where strangers can observe me. And, like Robinson’s protagonist, I know I’ll be scarred for life if I screw up and wreck something. Visions of the Brady kids engulfed in a roomful of suds, with Alice, hapless and zany as ever, plunging in to rescue them. I’d probably just flood a portion of floor, earning a resentful glance from the employee who has to mop it up.

Nah, forget it. I’m full of crap. I think I’d be fine if left to my own devices. As Alan Partridge might say, “I’m handy! I’m handy!”