Sank you, Pantyboy

One thing I've come to love about city life is dropping my laundry off at the nearest Wash 'n Fold. Every couple of weeks, I simply sling my bag of dirty clothes in the front door and by the end of the day it's waiting for me, perfectly fresh and folded and sealed in plastic. Sure they don't speak Engrish beyond "sank you," and you practically have to guide their fingers on the number pad to type in your phone number, but they always do it with a smile. And I never have to set foot in a laundromat.Now, the truly beautiful thing about this is that I never see the dirty work happen. I simply hand them my golden ticket and, POOF!, my clothes are clean. But during my last pickup visit, I got an unwelcome surprise when I came in just a little too early. There was the tiny Asian man at the front counter, cheerily handling my intimates! I mean, it's not that I expect him to wear gloves or anything. Hell, I probably wouldn't even care if he brought them up to his face and breathed in. But I don't want to SEE it happen. What's more, he was folding them right there in the front where anyone who walked in or by the store would see MY undies.

Unfortunately, all the rest of my clothes had already been folded. It would have been stupid to leave and come back when he would be done in five minutes. So there I stood, distractedly fingering my BlackBerry and trying not to meet his gaze while he primly placed each pair of my briefs on top of the next. What made matters worse is that, as a gay man, I don't have baggy boxers or even simple white Calvin Kleins. No, I have to have pink undies with animals on them. And I just KNOW he was suppressing a smile and thinking in whatever language is native to him that this white ladyboy has some seriously girly panties. I am convinced I am going to be forever known as "pantyboy" to him and his family of workers. After a few minutes of turning beat red and gritting my teeth, I mumble something like, "You know, you don't have to finish folding. Just throw everything in the bag." He just nods agreeably, smiles and continues folding as I shift to my right leg uncomfortably.Finally, after five minutes going on five hours, he's done. He wraps everything up and stuffs it in my laundry bag. He smiles again, hands me my change and says, "Sank you, pwease come again" just as he always does. And I realize something as I heft my load onto my shoulder and head home. Maybe he gossips to his wife later about me and maybe he doesn't. Either way, my undies are just a handful of hundreds that pass through his hands every day. He'll probably forget all about it by the time he's hitting his wok if he hasn't already. After all, in a city this size, it's easy to get lost in the fold.