A Farewell to Koozie

There are a few things in life I look forward to…one of them is waking up in the morning.  If I have done that, then there are boundless opportunities for me in that day.

Another thing I look forward to is the annual “family night” at my friends’ deer camp.  It is held the last Saturday of the second week of modern gun deer season.  Oh, the food is to die for!  I wish I had taken a picture of the “cook” shack.  This is the sweetest place you have ever seen in a camp area…military style canvas building with all the amenities of a professional kitchen.  There are refrigerators and freezers and stoves.  It’s heated…it’s BEAUTIFUL!   The guys work all day getting it ready for the guests.  When I arrive at the camp, dressed in my warmest attire complete with long underwear and wooliest socks inside of boots, I am greeted by a multitude of the kindest, sweetest people one could ever hope to meet.  It is simply the greatest event of the year.  Everyone is so happy to see one another.  There are usually stories being told and drinks being drank…..which leads me to my Koozie….

I have had a red koozie forever.  If you see many pictures of me…you can bet you will see my red koozie somewhere in the background.  That koozie has been with me to Brazil, New Orleans, South Carolina, Kentucky and all points in between.  That koozie always had a place in my luggage and was one of the first things I would pull out of my suitcase.  I’m pretty sure I’ve had that koozie for about 15+ years.

Tonight. I put it in the car (or so I thought) as we headed to deer camp.  When we arrived and parked..the boys unloaded and I started looking for my koozie….I was a little crazy because I couldn’t find it.  When I walked up to the campfire without my koozie, my BFF began to give me grief….apparently she had told a few people about my pitiful koozie.  She said it was orange, which, I guess it looked a little orange to her because it had aged, but to me, my old k-buddy was still red….but it was now gone.  That koozie has been with me through much laughter and many tears. Many lives and passings have  been shared with that red Koozie in hand.  It’s weird how you can become attached to an inanimate object like that.  Attached I was….there will not be another koozie that will fit my hand or my beer as perfectly as that one did.  But I will move on…..he is gone….I’m sad…I’m very sad…….

LaundrOmat

A few days ago, the long-eared, crazy dog decided to spit up on my comforter. This morning, I FINALLY made it to the laudromat…which has given me some fuel for a post. Here we go…..

I find LaundrOmats interesting and useful. Our first apartment was about the size of our current living room. Needless to say, a laundry room wasn’t included in the floor plan. The apartment complex had a small washeteria, so I would traipse my little, 18 year old self down there about once a week to take care of the dirty clothes. This little “private” laundromat only gave me a suggestion of how REAL laundromats worked. Yes, there were kids, there were annoying men, there was always a machine out of order…. but then, we moved several times. With those re-locations came the, um…. “opportunities” to venture out into the real world and burn lots of gas trying to find the least creepy, safest appearing laundromat.

Following are a few things that are common among all laundromats:

1. If you need a heavy duty machine and there are 5 heavy duty machines at your first choice of laundromat, 4 of them will be out of order and one will have clothes in it. So, just turn around and take that 150-pounds of laundry BACK to your car and find another place.

2. It doesn’t matter if it’s 120-degrees or -20-degrees, there will be a fly hanging out in the laundromat who will become interested in me, and ONLY me…and My nose in particular. Nothing makes me look more like a Psychotic, laundromat-creeping-weirdo than my flailing arms and face slapping maneuvers trying to kill that nostril seeking fly that hasn’t seemed to bother anyone else in the place.

3. There is most always an unsupervised, snot-nosed toddler who prefers his own boogers over that bag of skittles or cheetos in his other hand – at least the kid either has sweet/salty or soft/cheesy snacks.  On the up side, I am almost always hungry when I go to the laundromat.  These toddlers most likely squash the desire to raid my quarter stash to feed myself from the vending machines.

4.  Speaking of kids, I can usually count on there being an older youngster, say 5-8 years of age who will just be sitting in a chair staring at me.  I smile, but the child just has a blank stare…at me…. all that goes through my mind is a froggy voice saying, “REDRUM, REDRUM.”

5.  You can bet your bottom dollar that if I’ve managed to get to a laundromat where I am alone, there will be a creepy guy, with no laundry, who will come in to look at magazines or a newspaper.  AND you can dig around and find some change to place a bet on this – no one, I mean no one on my contact list will answer his/her phone… that is, if I even have my cell phone in my pocket.  Back in the early laundromat days, there were no cellphones and the only pay phone was invariably right next to the chair that creepy guy would sit in!

As I said, LaundrOmats are interesting.  The thing I love most about laundromats is the fact that you can put all your clothes on to wash at the same time, put them all in dryers…and then you’re done.  Having said that, this morning I just took my comforter to the laundromat… now, I’ve got laundry to do – UGH!