The laundroman (this is not a typo)

I don't go to the laundromat in Paris, I go to the laundroman.  And he's really nice.  If I do laundry at 8:45 p.m. he shows up at 9:45 to clean everything before he closes at 10:00.  It's really clean, really close and really not all that dreadful to do laundry.

Before I left Chicago I told Lance to be sure to remind me that in my search for the perfect apartment, laundry was a must.  As you may have guessed, if there's no room for a toilet, there's no room for a washing machine in my quarters. (in fact, there's no room to store quarters to use in a washing machine) So, I make a weekly or bi-weekly trip to the laundroman.  It's just down the block a bit and I can see it from my window. I like to go at the end of the night because I like it when he comes in with his walkman (okay, I'm sure it's not a walkman anymore).  When he sees me he trades whatever he's listening to for a short conversation in terrible French with the American girl in Paris.  I'm sure he's not as happy about these evenings as I am, but he does it with a smile.

There is a phone on the wall in the place and if you pick it up, it seems to go directly to him.  I've never done it but I've seen other people do it.  They tell him the problem and within minutes he shows up through the front door.  That's when I realized that he must live nearby.

A couple of weeks ago I saw him on the street and he said hi.  To be walking down the street in Paris and have someone say hi is pretty cool.  You might think that's dumb, but I'm admitting it, to me it's pretty cool.  I asked him about the best place to park my bike.  He told me where to leave it and then he said that he'd keep an eye on it for me because he lived right there, and pointed to the building across from mine! 

I've always felt a certain sort of anonimity with my neighbors in the buildings across the street.  When I open the window to check the weather and someone across is out smoking a cigarette, you don't really acknowledge one another because that's the person you might have seen undressing the night before if you forgot to close your curtains. Who knows where he lives?!

He doesn't know it, but he's really one of my friends.  It's not like we've traded numbers or emails or anything, but one of these days maybe I'll pick up that phone at the laundromat just to say hi to the laundroman.