A woman approached me at the Laundromat.  She handed me a printed card with a pen attached.  The card read, “I am a deaf mute,” going on to indicate that she was indigent and needed a little money, apparently in exchange for the pen and card. I gave her a two-dollar bill but declined her items.  At first, she did not recognize the bill, but then smiled and nodded in acknowledgement of the zakat. Upon reflection, I should have given more.  

 

A few paces away, a fellow doing laundry also looked quite down on his luck. When the woman handed him the same card and pen that she had offered to me, he signaled that he had no money. She walked on. Later the same fellow approached the Laundromat’s owner, my friend Rick, and told him there was something wrong with the machine he was using; it did not remove all the soapsuds in the rinse cycle. Too bad, I thought. What about the deaf mute?

 

Rick explained that using too much soap caused the suds problem. When the fellow asked Rick if he could do anything about it, Rick said to run the cycle again without soap and next time to use fabric softener – and less soap. The fellow looked at Rick quizzically and said he did not have any more money. “I’m asking if you can do anything to help me man.” Rick replied, “I told you what you can do,” adding “Give me a couple of minutes, and I’ll reset the machine for you.”   

 

As the fellow walked off, Rick said to me, “Well, that’s a new one.” I then heard the fellow talking on his cell phone, recounting the experience with the deaf-mute woman.“Yeah, she was Asian,” and then, “I’ve never heard that one before.” 

 

Rick is going to a convention this weekend to learn about how to make the Laundromat more environmentally friendly — a green Laundromat, but he thinks the cost will be a little out of his reach. As we finished our visit, I looked out at the parking lot; at the far end, near the Happy Panda fast-food Chinese restaurant. I saw the woman. She was walking very slowly and covering her head with a towel to shield it from the bright sun. It was a hot dry day, and the parking lot was baking. I thought of jogging over and giving her some more money, but I was short on time and needed to get some cat litter on my way home. I turned on my car's air-conditioner as soon as it started.