A recent move has brought me to a comfy apartment building in friendly Medford, Massachusetts, complete with washer and dryer hookup. However, while having such a hookup is helpful, it’s much more practical to have a working hookup, which alas I do not (dirty scamming realtors are to blame). So I’m left with a dilemma: (a) walk up the street to the laundromat; (b) drive home to mum and dad (3.5 hours) once a month; or (c) screw it and give up washing altogether. My fear with respect to (a) lies in what sort of evil lives in the neighborhood laundromat’s great tumbling vats. I’m not suggesting the locals or even the owners of said facility are dirty; I’m just curious what kind of statistics you can throw out concerning sanitation and public laundering facilities. I’m concerned that my girlfriend and I will suffer some itchy affliction if we don’t boil our clothes after washing them in a public spot. Let me know! –Another minion boggled by your prodigious gray matter
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8 Uveal melanoma, i.e., cancer of the pigmented layer of the eye. Recent research has found that European laundry workers have triple the usual rate of this dreadful ailment. No one is publicly saying why, but for those of us capable of putting two and two together (see snails, etc, above) the message is all too clear: see what you can do about that washer/dryer hookup, or learn to love the dirt.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration/Slug Signorino.
