Seeing Red at the Bubble White

Lessee …. Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November…. So this must be October 1! First of the month, so there’s a new Hot Flash on the Hot Flashes page!

Okay. This is the last Lonnie and Tiny story I took for SIW to critique. This one isn’t from Tiny’s point of view, though; this one is Mary Lee’s.

Seeing Red at the Bubble White

excerpt from “Leona, Me, and the Laundromat of the Holy Spirit”
by Marian Allen

When we were still new brides, we lived in neighboring apartment buildings so cheap they didn’t have laundry facilities. The boys worked Saturday jobs so we could save up to buy houses, and on Saturdays Leona and I hauled dirty clothes down the street to the Bubble White laundromat.

One Saturday, we were passing the time by talking and laughing, as wives do, about the things our husbands did that made us crazy. After some particularly Lonnie story, I made the mistake of saying, “Well, you married the fool.”

She didn’t talk much for the rest of the day, and she avoided me all week. The next Saturday, she said she was going someplace else and all but shut the door in my face.

I cried so much and felt so bad, I’d have forged Lonnie’s name on a PhD if it could have made it up to Leona for what I’d said.

After another week of the cold shoulder, Tiny said, “I asked Lonnie what’s the matter with Leona, and he said she said Brother Pike said you’re a bad influence and a tool of the devil and you’re trying to break up her marriage. She’s going to some church laundromat.”

“Some church laundromat? What do they use for detergent, the blood of the Lamb?”

Tiny did that rumbly chuckle that’s something between a belly laugh and a cackle. I just love that man so much. “Be nice, Mary Lee” he said. “Why don’t you ask if you can go with her? It might make it up to her for you telling the truth about Lon.”

~*~

So next week, I’ll run a poll asking for titles for the collection of Lonnie and Tiny stories. Put your thinking caps on!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a scene set in or around a laundromat (or, as we used to call them in the West End of Louisville, a warshateria).

MA

About

I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but now live in the woods in southern Indiana. Though I only write fiction, I love to read non-fiction. The more I learn about this world, the more fantastic I see it is.

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One thought on “Seeing Red at the Bubble White

  1. joey

    October 1, 2017 at 11:47am

    Is it possible I’d read this before? Or is it just my brain remembering the other? I may fail the quiz.
    I haven’t been up long :/

    Washed in the blood of the lamb made me LOL. Lawd. I had a neighbor who said that once about her household and Sassy (5) freaked-out completely because took literally. Bless.

    Permalink  ⋅ Reply
    • Author

      Marian Allen

      October 1, 2017 at 2:34pm

      Yes, I believe I may have written this in May for Story A Day! Good bemembering, Joey! I’m with Sassy — sounds ick!

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