The speaker is stuck in a laundromat with a hangover, watching machines churn and trying to hold himself together. Everything around him feels seedy and slightly off: a blinking arcade game, a dead machine in the corner, Christmas music playing weeks too early. He is nauseous but still planning which clothes he’ll put on, hoping his jeans will fit well. The mood is gritty, queasy, and a little surreal. Then someone else’s underwear tumbles out and lands on his laundry, and in his sick, spinning state it seems to mock him—smirking waistband, leg holes yelling “HA HA.” His stomach turns like the wash, and the last image makes the dryer feel like a tornado swallowing the past in hot circles. It’s a vivid, self-deprecating snapshot of feeling awful and absurd in an ordinary place.
Hausfrau Haven (No Comforters) — Summary
Hungover at the Laundromat; everything on spin cycle. COLD / COLD / MIXED LOAD
An Asteroids arcade game blinks through its demo. Hand streaks near the start button are more visible than the screen. Its counterpart in the corner is burnt out. Unplugged. Quit on.
Christmas music is four weeks early and I'm kind of singing with thirteen quarters and two dryers going. Nauseously, I identify the shirt I'd like to wear the rest of the day; fading jeans that will soon fit tight and right, belt-less.
Suddenly, the underwear. Not mine, alive, somersaulting through the air like an acrobat, leaping over and on top of my rightful clothes, the white waistband smirking, the bright blue briefs yelling HA HA through the leg holes.
My stomach suds up and whirls. The mismatched tornado tumbles on, devouring the past in heated circles.