What would you do in exchange for your soap

I was doing my laundry at the Laundromat That Never Sleep (which no longer calls itself such--they went to great expense to fix the neon sign--but you can see a photo of how the sign used to look at Jenny Toomey's blog of all places) the other night and I got spanged by a drawn, strung-out young man carrying half of a gilt frame.

"Excuse me, miss, do you have any change?" he asked plaintively.

"No, I don't, sorry." This was true, because although ordinarily I'd have lots of change with which to do laundry, this is one-a them newfangled laundromats where you put money on a card and stick the card into a slot on the machine.

"Do you have a dollar?" he suggested hopefully.

It was at this point I noticed that he was wearing a North Face parka. Still, I didn't tell him to scram. What the hell, I thought, perhaps this will make up for the time I set that hobo on fire.

"I don't know. Let me check." I began rummaging through my purse. He stood there patiently, expectantly.

All of a sudden I heard a cellphone ringing. I checked mine, but it was silent.
RING
RING
RING

The Littlest Junkie stood there, looking uncomfortable. Finally, he reached into his pocket, pulled out a cellphone, and muttered, "I have to take this call." He wandered away and didn't return.

The moral of this story? If you're going to waste your parents' money and drop out of Middlebury and come down to NYC to play experimental music and get hooked on heroin, will you at least learn to suck a dick for your drugs like the rest of us? Leave the laundromat folk alone.