Let's Clean Things Up

I was young...maybe 22, newly married and fairly wide-eyed when it came to the world. Some of my contemporaries had already been unburdened from the nativete of childhood but I still carried the remnants.

The washer in the condo I lived in went out. A trip to the laundromat was in order. I tried to find one in a safe neighborhood and felt pretty comfortable to find a clean one that was being watched over by a very elderly man.

We exchange pleasantries, I did my duties and then proceeded to read Lake Wobegon Days. Laundry out of washers into the dryers (you cannot deny the efficiency of getting it all done at one time), I was leaning on the metal for warmth, enmeshed in my book. I look up to see the man walking out of his office. His too small t-shirt was not sufficient to hide the fact that he was starkers from the waist down.

I learned a few things in the few seconds before left the place. I learned that gravity takes hold of men's privates in a way that I had been sheltered from. Saggy breasts have nothing on what happens when the weight of the world meets thinning, stretchable skin weighted down by.......well, lots of nicknames for these.......my favorites being:

• conkers
• bojangles
• danglers
• tea bags
• puggets (this one you use the gents first initial and replace the N)
• wrinklepurse

Hey....I did boobs once so this is appropriate.

I digress......I booked it, called my husband, made him leave work and get my laundry, then sent him back in to get my book. I don't know what I thought....I guess big fat PERV.  I am now older and wiser (cough cough), I realized that he very likely soiled himself and was trying to clean up. 

I've learned empathy since then and I don't embarrass quite so easy, so please don't judge.