March Madness: Embedded at the Laundromat

by Kevin C. Emerson

There hasn't been time to do much lately. It seems like ever since we tried to decapitate the enemy last Thursday, things have been rushed. We may be attacked. The networks would have us believe that every second of attention need be on this war. When you watch it, nothing happens for hours, yet you keep checking, somewhat nauseously, listening, hearing nothing new. Slowly, you exhale, without feeling relieved.

And so now I am finally at the laundromat. Since at this point I'm still planning on this war being over in two weeks, just like the college basketball March Madness, I'm wondering: is this "that time I did laundry" during the war?

I wonder if Iraqis have laundromats. I wonder if they have machines that dispense one-time packets of soap. Because on Friday, when CBS broke into the NCAA basketball games to show the cinema-quality shots of bombs falling on Baghdad, I wasn't prepared for streetlights. I wasn't prepared for highways with overpasses, and arcs of poured concrete. I wasn't prepared for landscaping. What—do you mean we're not just bombing the mud hut palace of a bloody dictator, but instead a city with electronic billboards?

I am not normally one to separate the whites and darks, god forbid the colds and hots. This evening, it is not marriage that has me meticulously separating this bag of laundry into four machines. Four machines that aren't even stuffed. Four machines: warm darks, hot darks, cold khaki, and hot whites. We are bombing the hell out of Iraq. Men and women are having their skin torn open by flying lead. It's important to wash these clothes well. Carefully. With purpose.

Before heading to the laundromat, I took the subway home from work. I was walking to the subway, a nice, safe, half-hour before what I figured a terrorist would consider "rush-hour". I was going to get under and out of Boston before the best window for "mass casualties". Last Thursday, as 48 Hours drew to a close, I drove to work instead, avoiding the tunnels of death, even though it is one long hellish swear of a ride that saves no time.

Outside the subway station today, I noticed the side of a polished steel public phone cubicle where someone has scrawled a message in black marker: "Kill Bush."  I exhaled, an empty sighing sound, and kept moving.

I rode the subway, and escaped the anthrax attack once again.

Iraqis are fighting. We were told they would just surrender and cheer us. Now, Dan Rather says there could be up to 50 casualties from this surprise attack where civilians pretended to surrender, then started shooting. 50. When asked if this was a disturbing development, Bush and Rumsfeld told us that war is hard. Rumsfeld says: "A war is a war. It is a brutal thing."

I use three dryers. There will be an unprecedented "Permanent Press" load during my wartime laundry trip. I'm making sure the broadcloth and terry cloth aren't mixed.

Nobody signed me up for a "brutal thing".  Not that I had even the slightest choice in all this, but at least I was promised the kind of faux war that my generation has been accustomed to. Graphics, a new CNN theme song, nightvision explosions and joyous children. I was promised that this would be happening by today. It's not.

They never said there would be real dying. Why aren't the Iraqis just rolling over and surrendering? Why aren't they taking their ready-meal aid packets and copies of Windows XP and heading to the laundromat? Sure, Bush promised a war, but he didn't promise some old-school war where Americans die. Now it's happening. Of course he said it would be difficult. But we don't expect difficult to mean young Americans shown dead on television.

And how could we? We have no context for expecting it. Don't these Iraqis want democracy? Aren't they grateful? Haven't they turned on Saddam yet? Don't they want to watch the NCAA's, maybe set up a local bracket pool?

But March Madness doesn't work that way. Every year, you study the match-ups, the seed numbers, you read about the quality of the defense, the experienced backcourt, you get down with the field-goal percentages and turnover-to-assist ratio. It will be easy. This team is heading to the Final Four. You see it. Sure, I'll enter the pool. Sign me up. It'll be easy. Sweet Sixteen here we come.

And the first game starts well, until shots start rimming out in the second half. The little white guys on the 16 seed start running these improbable screens and sinking 3's. The good old money-seed is actually struggling to find the basket. It doesn't make any sense. And suddenly, there's a nagging feeling in your gut. What if, what If, they pull the upset? That's just not what you signed up for. If you knew they were going to pull the upset you never would have gotten in. Sure, a 16 seed has never upset a 1 seed. But there's a lot of parity in college basketball these days, because of everyone's improved access to scouting reports, talented players and radiological material. What if it happens?

In the bracket I trusted. But even though analysts Bush and Rumsfeld keep reminding me of the odds, the statistics—

I pull out the button-downs and start folding. I pump more quarters into the dryers, creating time and space. The towels never get these precious extra minutes. Still, I can't shake the feeling. The awful empty exhale. If there is no certainty in the bracket, in the mathematical structure with its decreasing odds, its clear path to victory, then what?

And the worst part, as you watch the improbable become a reality, and your Final Four victory dims, is that all of your experienced friends turn from you. They knew this could happen. They knew there would be phone calls, into the middle of America in the dead of night. There's one more patriot who won't be separating his white and colors. Rename your potato fries whatever you want, they told you so.

I fold the towels and the still-damp socks at the laundromat. The damn socks never totally dry. I could do this at home, but at home there is television, radio, internet, and my bracket, perfection marred by the x's of unpredictability. Foolish me for thinking I could predict anything.

These socks could be balled just a little more neatly. This towel might need another 8 minutes. ...

Copyright © Kevin C. Emerson 2003