#6 Lessons Learned at the Laundromat
Like so many folks restricted to my home for much of the past 18 months, my family got a puppy. That is me in the picture holding Dolly the poodle. For many reasons, she has been difficult to train and not the least of which is her tendency to try to eat and drink everything she sees on her walks outside. One day we had a problem with some soiling of a king-sized comforter that will not fit into my standard size washer and drier.
I stripped the comforter off and brought it to the local public laundromat a few miles from my home. This particular laundromat was next to a busy convenience store and tended to attract some people who were homeless or a little down on their luck. After I loaded the comforter into the biggest machine they had, I was sitting on the molded orange chairs their and reading a book. A man in a motorized wheel chair came by and began a chat with me. He had a lot of his belongings on the chair and I got the feeling that hanging around the laundromat was a large part of his social life.
He handed me a plastic baggie holding 4 detergent pods. In the times of Covid, this type of exchange between total strangers was being frowned upon. I tried to politely decline his offer. I thanked him but suggested that perhaps he should save his gift for some folk who might come into the facility who might truly be in need. (not the white lady doctor who drove up in her Lexus) No, he insisted, that I accept his offering as a gift because that would please him. Of course, I realized that the polite thing to do, would be to graciously accept the gift, so I did. I thanked him for his generosity.
About half an hour later into my wash cycle, another man came in to the laundromat with a large load of his dirty laundry. He had a very thin and harried appearance that I recognized from three decades of treating similar men in the emergency department. He started looking around the room for a detergent dispenser and asked me where I thought it might be. I immediately brought forth the baggie with the detergent pods and offered them to him. He wanted to decline or just take the two that he needed. I told him that another man had given them to me and that I would be so pleased if he would take them and use them. I mentioned that he could save the two extra pods for next time or give them to someone else. The man took the baggie and went back to doing his laundry. I was left feeling buoyant.
I learned a little lesson about the giving and receiving of gifts that day. I also got the stains out of my King-sized comforter. I reflected with gratitude on the good fortune and material goods that I had. One gift that I had recently received was a vaccination against Covid-19. What an amazing discovery and contribution our scientists and researchers have given to the world stricken by a novel and deadly viral pandemic.
With tremendous appreciation and trust, I accepted this jab in the deltoid muscle of my left arm. Some of our colleagues and neighbors have other opinions about the vaccine and have exercised their patient autonomy by refusing it. Sadly, and predictably, many of those unvaccinated people are contracting the Delta variant of Covid-19 and overcrowding our emergency departments and ICUs. I humbly ask all those people who are skeptical or against the idea of mandates to consider the vaccine as a gift that will help keep them out of the ICU. It’s a gift that you pass along to your family and your colleagues. The receiving and giving of gifts feels amazing.
