It was Easter Sunday, but the home minister and I spent the afternoon at our usual self-service laundrette, where we were met with a ‘surprise’.
We frequented laundrettes once a week, BC – Before Covid-19 – but now, we only go once every two, or three weeks.
We do our ‘normal’ laundry at home, but use the laundrette for the bedsheets, comforters, curtains, and other ‘heavy-duty’ clothing.
Living in an apartment, drying space is at a premium, and it can take days for bulky items to dry, as we discovered during the various lockdowns imposed in Malaysia since March 2020.
As recounted on this website in 2020, you find many types of people at laundrettes, but the one we met on Sunday took the cake, icing, and the decorations!
We picked this particular laundrette as there is a mini-mart less than 200m away in one direction, and a supermarket, 50m in the other direction. We can get groceries and other stuff while waiting for the clothes to dry.
On Sunday, while the home minister was busy shopping, I was in the car, separating the loose change into several piles.
The home minister returned just as the time on the dryer ended. As she opened it, a guy I saw hanging around told her: “Eh, tadi, I tumpang your dryer (I borrowed your dryer).”
She flipped and ticked him off for putting his clothes in with ours, but he acted as if it was no big deal.
“Dua tuala saja.” (It’s just two towels).
He coolly walked off after collecting his towels, while we had to redo our laundry. To make matters worse, it started to rain.
Several customers who witnessed the incident, shook their heads. Several said they were not leaving their clothes unattended, ever again.
How could a person think it was all right to “hijack” someone else’s dryer?
I had tweeted my experience and it got quite a reaction – over 800 retweets and over 500 quote tweets. Some were grossed out by the episode, while others shared their dobi experiences.
At the laundromat. Drying bed sheets and comforters. As we about to check, got this one fella said: I tumpang your dryer. Wife marah dia, he buat tak tau. His towels (besar and thick) meant not all our stuff dry so have to masuk machine again. And now raining heavily 🤦🏼♂🤦🏼♂ pic.twitter.com/XFtfnZ5wkM
— gnunis (@gnunis1892) April 17, 2022
On a side note, I once took a customer’s clothes out from an unattended washer, thinking it was done, only to find out that the person had gone to buy detergent, and had yet to start his load!
He swore at me, but in my defence, I told him that I waited for 15 minutes before removing his clothes. I had assumed he was one of those who liked leaving their items in machines long after the cycle had finished.
There are signs in some laundrettes warning against leaving clothes in the machines. Yet, not everyone reads the signs around them, do they?
DEATH TOLL FALLS BELOW 100
There were 85 fatalities in the past one week, the first time since Feb 5-11 (88) that there were under 100 deaths over seven days. That included five deaths on Thursday, the lowest for a single day, since Feb 9 (nine).
Malaysia now has 35,482 Covid-19-related deaths.
The number of new cases dipped below 6,000 on Thursday, with 5,899 infections, the first time that had happened since Feb 3 (5,720). In total, Malaysia has 4,421,443 cases after 48,746 new infections in the last week.
For the sixth consecutive week, there were more recoveries than new cases. In the past week, 76,433 patients received a clean bill of health. That brought the total to 4,300,558.
Worldwide there are 508,707,877 cases, and 6,240,640 fatalities.
CLOSE CALL FOR MY DAUGHTER
It was bound to happen sooner or later, but there was a positive case in my daughter’s classroom on Thursday.
Her teacher immediately notified parents, listing down the names of those sitting in front, behind, left, and right of the patient.
My daughter said her classmate was absent from school on Tuesday, and they hardly spoke. She is also paranoid and does not take off her face mask. We did a saliva test yesterday, and she was negative.
By the way, here’s the Health Ministry’s latest guidelines for close contacts.
Effective 22 April 2022 (Friday), the following is the procedure for close contacts to COVID-19 cases. pic.twitter.com/GZwFsybALC
— KKMalaysia🇲🇾😷 (@KKMPutrajaya) April 21, 2022
EASY, THREE-INGREDIENT RECIPES
According to this website, these are the best three-ingredient sandwiches.
IF
On the subject of sandwiches, here is a song by the American soft rock band, Bread.
The song was No. 4 on the United States’ Billboard Hot 100 in 1971, and No. 1 on the US Easy Listening chart.
Until next week, stay safe.
