Ask Lemmy

Correct answer.

The people there are mainly bored because they are waiting. And sometimes creativity arises out of boredom.

And a naked, bloody clown playing patty cake with his imaginary friend while his clothes wash.

And a frustrated Mr Bean trying to do laundry.

That one episode of Friends

My last three laundromat visits involved anal.

That reads like something out of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Or maybe it's a bar with a laundromat as lots of stains happen in bars.

I've seen one laundromat/bar like that, and instantly thought it was genius.

Hey everyone! Take a look at mister "I have two pairs of underwear" over here!

I have zero paifs of underwear.

Well, off the top of my head:

• There was an episode of Dr. Who during...I think David Tennant's career? It was one of those that didn't actually have much of The Doctor in it, some guy had noticed The Doctor appearing throughout history and wanted to try and meet him, so he managed to run into Rose's mother, at a laundromat. Who proceeded to flirt with him as she loaded her underwear into the wash by saying 'and here I am flashing you me knickers.'

• There was a show from the 90's that no one remembers called Relic Hunter. In one episode miss relic hunter, her assistant and I think the client of the week duck into a laundromat as a place they can look through a dossier, but the owner insists that they have to wash something to remain on the premises, because they needed an excuse to peel Tia Carrere to her skivvies.

• The episode of Futurama where...let's see if I remember this right? Bender gets mangled and paralyzed, meets Beck, hires him as a washboard player(?) and then the rest of the cast follow him around on tour, there's a scene where the crew is hanging around in their underwear while all their clothes wash, and it accidentally tie dyes them because of Amy's pink track suit.

• Early in Friends, there's an episode where Ross...again let's see if I remember this correctly...Rachel was a rich girl and thus had no domestic skills, and Ross offered to teach her how to do laundry, kind of as an excuse to hang around with her to flirt. They also manage to accidentally dye her clothes pink by leaving something red in with them. IIRC Joey mocked him for his choice of Totally Not Snuggle, so he bought a detergent called Uberweisse or something. I think this was in their building's laundry room rather than a laundromat but meh.

• I think there's a scene in Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog where Dr. Horrible and whatever Felicia Day's character was named where they flirt in a laundromat. My memory of that show has kind of faded to just the Bad Horse song.

I feel like it's kind of a meet-cute trope in older sitcoms

I hate how tv seems to be written by people who have no idea how regular people live. Like how in tv shows, people pop in on someone at home and person is fully made up and dressed, and their homes are always spotless. You pop in on me unexpected and I'm going to be in my boxer briefs, angry that I'm being disturbed, and there are kids toys and laundry all over the living room

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LaundromatLiaisons

I mean.....it's getting harder and harder to buy a house as an individual. Apartment living is very real. And if you rent in a duplex, you're not going to buy a washer/dryer.

So.....yeah. I'd say not owning washer/dryer starts becoming more common if you're under 45, and gets more common the younger you go.

The owner of my laundromat claims that it's cheaper to do your laundry there than at home. At first i thought "of course a laundromat owner would say that", but then he argued that his machines are more efficient than the ones we buy and that they are collectively heated.

I still think he's fulll of shit because he only argued about energy costs, not including his rent taxes or profit; but it did get me thinking that it would be cheaper and more efficient to wash our clothes collectively.

Definitely more common in suburban areas with more single family homes or places with larger apartments.

That said, having to drag all your laundry down to the laundromat or building laundry is very inconvenient and sucks up a lot of time. I don't miss that at all.

I used to go to this Laundromat and next door to it was a good burger joint that served beer and had great food. Inside the burger joint was a light up board with all the laundromat machines and they would light up green when your load was complete. Must have been owned by the same people and it was a great business model. I'd go have a burger and beer every other week and watch tv in the burger joint till the light told me my stuff was ready