First of all, laundromats are not fun. (That title was meant to be ironic.) Unless you are mesmerized by pounds of fabric whirling in suds, you have to make your own fun.

When I was a kid, there was a laundromat near our house called “Astronaut Village.” (I have no idea why. Maybe because the space race was underway at the time. Maybe because it made the laundromat sound sexy. (It wasn’t.) Maybe because the town had an Air Force base that probably did some aeronautical work. But I digress.)

Astronaut Village was high-tech for the time, which is to say that they had a side room with a TV. Moms could park their kids in front of the TV and watch them through a glass window at the same time they watched their clothes spin. (Or the moms could watch the TV if they didn’t mind the possibility that someone would dump their clothes into a rolling basket and swipe their washer or dryer. Or their unmentionables. Dads were never present. But I digress again.) Eventually, we got a washer and dryer of our own, and visits to Astronaut Village ceased.

When I got to college, I found that there were a few washers and dryers in the basement of the dorms. These were the old-fashioned kind. (The kind that took quarters rather than debit cards, I mean. Not the kind that used wringers. How old do you think I am, anyway? But I digress yet again.) When we had to leave the lounge to go put the laundry in the dryer, we called it “turning the laundry” (like you would say “I have to turn the steak” while cooking).

When I moved out of the dorm, I found a laundromat within driving distance, if you define “driving distance” a bit loosely. That laundromat was not as high-tech as Astronaut Village, which is to say there was no TV. I spent my waiting time imagining that the guy from the commercials would come in, offer me $50 for a t-shirt, cut it in half, and demonstrate the comparative superiority of one detergent over another. This never happened.

At last, I got an apartment of my own, and again the laundry machines were in the basement. (I had not, at that point, read enough true crime books to realize that basement laundries in apartment complexes were death traps frequented by serial killers. But I digress some more.)

Now we live in a nice house and have a washer and dryer on the second floor, which is where most of our clothes live. (This arrangement is better than at my friend Beth’s house, which has the washer and dryer on the fourth floor and her bedroom on the first floor. Naturally, since it’s an old, old house, there’s no elevator (or even a dumbwaiter). Her legs are definitely toned. But I digress even more.)

As I mentioned, my husband and I have a washer and dryer, the compact stacked kind (not the full-sized stacked kind). But right now it’s on the fritz, and we lack the funds to get it repaired. We do, however, have the funds to get rolls of quarters, so again it’s the laundromat for us. The one we use is called “At Your Service,” presumably because they will also wash, dry, and fold your clothes for you—for a price that we also can’t afford. And they’re open 24/7. But they have industrial-sized equipment, so you can wash your comforter if you need to. No TV, but now I have an e-reader, so I can amuse myself.

Actually, I plan to open a combination laundromat/bar that would dispense canned beer from a drinks machine right next to the one that reluctantly coughs up small packages of detergent. I’d call the place “Duds and Suds” (or vice-versa). Not as puzzling as “Astronaut Village” or as classy as “At Your Service,” but it’s definitely catchy. And descriptive. I could franchise it. I bet I’d make a million dollars. And finally, at last, people really would have fun at the laundromat.