#223-SLOSHED!

In the early 60s I was attending college at San Jose State, in San Jose, California.  Being a college town and close to San Francisco it was a town filled with a lot of energy and interesting character's.   It was here that I witnessed an incredible scene.


The apartments we lived in did not have cloth washing facilities so we had to go to the local laundry-mat.  We usually went as a large group and made kind of a party out of it.  The guys would come by and see how many times they could go around in the dryer before throwing up (just one fun thing in their arsenal of dumb stuff).  We played music and talked (and drank beer).


One such night an old lady with baggy stockings, a black straw hat, and rumpled clothing came in carrying a pillow case.  We noticed her, but were having too much fun to notice that the pillow case was moving (well, one of the girls, after the event, said she saw it moving but thought she might have had too many beers).


Anyway, the ruemy old lady walked to one of the washers and dumped the contents of the pillow case into the washer.  She pulled out a quarter (yes, back then it only cost a quarter) put it into the machine and it started filling.  


When the washer started to thrash, a terrible sound to fill the room.  It sounded like a long low moan.  Then when the spin rinse kicked in it a sounded more like a broken siren.  This horrific noise filled the room.  I have never heard such a sound.


We all stopped talking mid sentence, shut off the music, and turned around trying to focus on the origin of the terrible sound.  We concluded, at once, that the sound was coming from washing machine #6.  The old lady was half leaning, half laying, against it as if she hadn't noticed the awful sound coming from her machine.


At first we thought that the motor was making the noise but when final spin kicked in the noise suddenly changed into a blood curdling scream.   We were all frozen in place with looks of fear and confusion on our faces.


When the spinning stopped, the old lady opened the lid, removed a soggy, groggy, long haired, black CAT and headed for the dryers.  It was then that we were shocked into action.  We yelled at the old lady, grabbed a towel and wrenched the cat from her arms.  The old lady appeared to be ambivalent about our concerns.

Actually, that cat's eyes weren't quite
as focused as this ones.

The ruckus had attracted the police who had to endure the enraged yammering noise of 15  hormonal females.  The police noted our complaints, and loaded the old lady (and the soggy-groggy cat) into the police car. 


We all congratulated ourselves for being fine upstanding citizens (and uttered a sigh of relief that the cops had not noticed that more than that cat was "sloshed" that night.  (There was A LOT of underage drinking going on in that laundry-mat). 

I guess this is what it would have looked
like if we had let her put it into the dryer!

PREVIEWS OF MONDAYS TO COME:

#224-I CHOOSE CONTROL

#225-DOROTHY, TAKE ME WITH YOU

#226-DID I WARP HIM FOR LIFE?

#227-ANOTHER FINE MESS!

#228-A SCREAM PIERCED THE AIR!

#229-AND THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE GOING TO GET LUCKY

kt 2/26/12