Washers, Dryers, And The Naked Lady.

My name is Kabin and this is my story. Strap in!

Hello, Shipmates!

As you know, I spent an entire year in one of the most fantasy laden cities in the world.... Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

It was one of the best experiences of my life. I felt truly free while I was there. No thoughts or fears of racism hounding me, like I feel burdened by when in the US. Good Money. A job hosting a game show that I enjoyed. 4 days off a week. A beautiful apartment next to the Arabian Gulf. As much solitude as I wanted. It was a paradise vacation for a year.

I miss the UAE "as much as the desert misses the rain," as my friend and colleague Bridget would say.

Interestingly enough, I will miss one item the most of all the things I discovered during my time there, though it might surprise you a little. Still, I have to share it.

I am going to miss the Washer/Dryer unit in my apartment.

Yes, bitches. I miss the washer/dryer unit.

It was a Teka brand Washer/Dryer, Model#1260 WD/TKE.

The real name should just be “Bad AssMagic Machine.” (BAMM)

The reason being I love it and miss it is that I used that unit over 300 times in the year I was here. I washed clothes every day. That unit was both a washer AND A DRYER! I know that those types of units have been around for a while, but I never had one until then. I used that sexy heifer every single night. I put my sopping wet, dirty, filthy clothes into my BAMM gurl at night, shut the front loading door, set it for its gargantuan 4-hour, 56-minute cycle, and go to bed. Then, when I got up, I would almost RUN to the machine and more often than not, my clothes are STILL WARM FROM THE CYCLE.

Then, I would just orgasm.... Out of pure happiness.

IT WAS JUST THAT AWESOME!!

Yes it was.

My clothes were clean and fresh smelling and I didn’t even have to do anything!

THAT, shipmates, was the power of BAMM!

And the water would get boiling hot, if you wanted it boiling hot. Plus, it only uses like 2 cups of water! It is amazing what that tough little machine could do!

If there was a way I could've smuggled that machine out of the country, I would've do it. Problem is, it was too big to fit in the overhead bin on the airplane.

Right now, I must digress.... I need to explain to you why the BAMM meant so much to me...

The reason why BAMM still means so much to me is that during the 6 previous years that I lived in Los Angeles, I rarely had a WD in the apartment, or flop-house, or SRO or couch where I lived. The one time I did have a washing machine and dryer, when I was in rehab and you had to work hard to get to theWD, because several other people were waiting to use it. It was just easier to go the Laundromat down the road. Ultimately, I had to go to the Laundromat around 400 times during the 6 years I was in LA. (Around once a week.) You see, I didn’t have that many clothes, so I had to wash them constantly. When I got divorced and moved to Los Angeles, I left Fayetteville with my tuba, one garbage bag full of clothes and one suitcase with all my other shit in it. I was expecting to just kill myself anyway, as soon as I arrived in LA, so I saw no need to bring a lot of shit. I was in a dark place back then. So, I kept thing simple... I just imagined there was a fire coming and I had 30 minutes to evacuate, which wasn’t that far from the truth. When I got to LA, I made a promise to myself that I would try to keep my moving down to one carload of stuff. I never wanted it to take more than one half hour to get out of where I was living. That forced me to travel lightly.

I lived one hell of a Spartan existence during my time in LA. All my dishes were plastic wear, which I could recycle at the end of my stay. My cups and saucers were all paper. Any tables and chairs I used, either came with the apartment, or were purchased from Goodwill. If the place did not come with a bed, I either slept on the floor, or on top of an air mattress. Milk crates were my dressers, my nightstands and my bed frames.

Clothing-wise, I had 6 pair of underwear, 3 T-shirts, 3 black sports shorts, 1 pair sweatpants, 2 dress sport coats, 2 pair of dress trousers, 3 dress shirts, 3 ties, 3 pair of white socks, 3 pair of black socks, 1 pair sneakers, 1 pair dress shoes, , 2 wash cloths, 2 towels, 1 old Northwest Airlines windbreaker and 1 US Airways Express outdoorjacket. That’s about it. To this day, that pretty much all I have. I really tried to keep life simple.

(Most other men, during a Mid-life crisis, would just buy a nice car, or have an affair! I decided to go insane!)

Anyway, with so few clothes, I had to make regular trips to the laundry, as I only had about six days worth of stuff to wear. I hated going to the laundry, mainly because of the people. Don’t get me wrong... the people there were good people, but they reminded me of me. They didn’t have much. They had to do their laundry, in public, in the eyes of others who would judge your shit and start comparing. UGH! I was always uncomfortable at the laundry mat. Often, I would throw my stuff in the washer that was least caked with detergent and bleach in the deposit cups and go sit in my un-air-conditioned car, which could get up to 140 degrees. I would do that with glee, just to avoid looking at a room full of Kabins for 2 hours. Then, when my stuff was done, I’d throw my shit into a garbage bag and head back to my home and fold my stuff with perfect folds, like I was still in the Marines and start the clock for another 7 days of wear and tear.

I did have some treasured experiences in the Laundromat. The most surreal experience had to be when I was in Burbank, at a new Laundromat, near Nickelodeon Studios. I had been in there about 90 minutes, waiting for my laundry to finish drying, when this woman came in, with her own garbage bag full of clothes. She had a SMOKIN HOT BODY, but was also looking really bedraggled, like she was in need of her next meth hit. Her blonde hair had not been washed in.... a little while .... and she possessed the one thing all men fear.............. THE CRAZY EYES!

You know what I’m talking about.

Those eyes that could probably see dead people. Eyes that looked like they wanted to pop out of her head and run away.

Those eyes made her look exciting and scary simultaneously.

Now, there are only 3 people in the Laundromat at this time. I’m on one end, toward the front, where the vending machines were, then there was an older biker guy, in the center, wearing well worn leather everything, with a "don't tread on me" patch, an upside down US Flag on his back, and upon his head, like a crown, was a doo-rag. And contestant number 3, Crazy Eyes, was toward the back, near the back door, where the bathroom was. We were all in our little worlds, trying to get thru the day unfettered and unmolested.

Then, Kaby Baby made a crucial error of judgment. I did something that no large black man in Burbank should do in the company of a bedraggled blonde meth woman with a garbage bag full of clothes.... I looked at her for too long, and our eyes met. SHITFUCKFUCKINGFUCKITYFUCKFUCK!

I could taste her contempt and mistrust and slithery discomfort. I immediately went back to looking at my computer, but my spidey senses felt something was messed up. I couldn’t put my finger on it, until Crazy Eyes walks past me to go to the vending machine......

SHE WAS BUCK FUCKING NAKED!

She had nothing on.

Not a stitch of clothes on her body!

Apparently, she took off her clothes to wash them. I guess she was truly a hardcore member of the Kabin Thomas School of KEEPING IT REAL. Now, I must confess, her being naked got my attention. Though I sleep naked, I usually do it in private, behind a locked door, in my room. Crazy Eyes was in a laundry mat.

SHE WAS IN A LAUNDROMAT! NAKED.

She walked past me, with her gravity-defying breasts and her Art Garfunkel-esque patch of pubic hair, went to the vending machine and bought a candy bar. She then looked at me, frowned, then walked up to the biker guy, who seemed to be totally chilledabout out having a naked woman in a laundry mat and loudly asked HIM to keep an eye on ME because she thought I was trouble!

He, being a gentleman-biker, said he would.

In my head began this conversation: “Lady.... You are fucking NAKED and you are in a LAUNDRY MAT.... and I look like I am looking for trouble?”

I didn’t know what to think... So, I called my spirit guide, Debbie Khumayyis and told her what I was seeing. I think Debbie thought I was full ofshit, which I totally could understand. But she did remind me that this was Los Angeles and as Mary Poppins would sing... "Anything can happen if you let it." Anything was possible in this city where dream come true.

I’m not going to tell you how it ended, because nothing really happened that was noteworthy. I am very happy that I was able to have another “K-venture” to be able to share as well as being happy for not having to do my laundry in a Laundromat around other miserable people, or naked women with THE CRAZY EYES!

And for that, I remain Grateful.