Yesterday I went down the hall to do laundry, and, as occasionally happens, someone had left their wet clothes in the washer. I took them out, left them in a pile, put mine in, then came back half an hour later to discover that they'd moved their laundry to the dryer and left a note. No one ever leaves notes; everyone in my apartment complex ignores each other at all times, it's like a rule. The note apologized, explained that the person had fallen asleep, thanked me for moving their clothes, then was signed with a guy's name and his apartment number.
When I was in the dorm, I'd get a bit irritated when someone moved my clothes, and the note came from an apartment of college students who like to party -- not an environment I'd expect to produce an overly-polite note apologizing for being inconsiderate. So obviously this was a bit unusual, but I responded with a nice but brief "sorry to have moved your laundry," tried not to think about the fact that he'd probably opened the washer and seen my underwear, and went back to my apartment to wait for the dryer to be free again.
Which was the end of that, until about 15 minutes ago when he sent me a facebook message that said,
"hey"
Not "Hey." Not "Hey, I live down the hall, remember me? You moved my laundry." No punctuation, no capitalization, just... "hey"
In retrospect, I acknowledge I was asking for something like this. I could have not responded, or at least not included the phrase "handling your wet laundry"... signed with my first name and last initial... with my apartment number at the bottom. (What? I was being neighborly!) He's actually pretty cute, but he's young, goes to CC, wears his baseball cap backward, and is the kind of guy to send facebook messages that just say "hey" to people without knowing anything about them except what their wet laundry looks like. He lists just about everything possible under what he's "looking for," and his likes include things like "anything funny," "anything interesting," and "Theres Alot of Them." His profile picture looks mildly smug, but not too gross or douchey. I dunno, guys -- he doesn't actually seem that creepy once you look past the laundry thing, and probably he's just being friendly, but I tend to draw the line at friending complete strangers. I don't think I'll respond, but that's the problem with neighbors -- what if I run into him in the hallway and am subsequently identifiable only as "that girl with the striped underwear who wouldn't even respond to my facebook message, bitch"?
I think I can handle being the building bitch. Either way, I am tired and way overdue to go to bed. The befuddling conundrums of social networking can wait until morning.
Okay, I'm sorry, but I just find the whole sending you a Facebook message thing when the sum total of your previous interaction was moving laundry to be REALLY FRICKING WEIRD. I don't even know.
ReplyDeleteI used to have to move laundry all the time when I was in the dorm/apartments at USC. No one ever came down to get their shit out, and there were never free machines, and it was just such a deal. One time, someone came back down and pulled all my clothes out in the middle of the cycle and put their own clothes back in, and I don't even know why. After that I started bringing down a book or homework and just sitting there.
It *is* really fricking weird. Like, I'm all for friendly, but that was a bit much. I didn't respond.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I had to move laundry at the dorm all the time, but I swear, people would somehow manage to move mine in the 30 SECONDS after it ended -- I almost never took that long to go collect it. That's just being impatient. I never had someone take it out in the middle of a cycle before, eesh -- although I think our washing machines locked while they were running if I remember right.