A Slice Of New York City: The Washing Machine

It is Saturday, January 4, 2014, barely three days in to the New Year, I'm in a deep sleep, recovering from the last two days of the total madness I got myself into. I'm having this fantastic dream with Lizzy Caplan. The setting of the dream was of perfection. It was dim save for the light from an enormous fireplace, Novella Vague's, "In a Manner of Speaking" was playing in the background. We were laying on this huge Grizzly Rug in front of the fire and Lizzy looks sensually in to my eyes and says, "I Love you Rafael!", in the way that signals that guarantees vertical jogging was about to go down. And I say, "Te Amo' Lizzy !!!" And just as Lizzy was about to remove her shirt, BANG! BANG BANG! "Rafelito ! Rafelito ! La maquina se rompio !" My mother knocking on my door. I'm abruptly woken up, got drool on my face, cold in my eyes, look at the clock, it's 9am ! I respond. "Que??..." "Mami, son las 9 de La manana."Que maquina?? De que' tu ta hablando." "Sal' pa' ensañarte", she says. I crawl out of bed, pissed off that I missed my "chance" with Lizzy, open the door half asleep and follow her to the kitchen rubbing my eyes and scrathin' my ass. La maquina no sirve, ve a ver si lo aregla", she says. "Ma'!", pero que se yo' de maquina'??" Yo' no puedo areglar eta' biana." But I humor her and take a look anyway, I mean the f'n thing is 20 years old. "Ma' yo creo' que ya no sirve. Eta' maquina e ma' vieja que to nieta', I say. "Y ahora??" she says in that dramatic Dominican way. "Vamo' comprar otra'" she says. "Ta bien' cuando quiere ir?", I say. "Vamo' ahora", she says all sweet like. "Ta' bien I say slightly grinding my teeth." "Tate’ pronto" she says, knowing damn well I get ready in minutes. "Tu ta' bravo?", she says. "No' mami, e que yo taba’ teniendo un sueño buenisimo con una actriz ma buena' que el diache", I say. "Ahhhh, dejate' de tar durmeindo de mujeres y bucate una' novia viva !, y afeitate", ye eto' y lo' otro. I just tuck my tail in between my legs and lock myself in the bathroom while she rambles on about all the things I do wrong, put my arms on the sink, look at the reflection of my bloodshot eyes in the mirror, make a shape of a gun with my right hand and pull the trigger.

Ok, I'm all ready to go get this new f'n Washing Machine. Been ready for a while and my mom is still fussing around looking for this and that. She announces she ready. She's bundled up like she's gonna' climb Mount Everest or something. She looks like a little bear. I'm like ma,' Its like 58 degrees out. I was wearing a Jean Jacket and a hoodie. She ignores me and shows me a wool lady's hat that she claims she found in my room. "De quien e' eta' gorra'?, De una de esa mujeres, que tu cre', que yo no se, que tu trai aqui cunado yo estoy durmiendo??" I said, "What??" I've never seen that hat in my life! De' que tu' ta hablando??." "Neva' seen it" she says in her thick accent, "yo te conoco' ati'. No importa', proque yo la lave' y ahora e' mia. Vamono." She then wears the thing like Marlon Brando in the Wild One. The truth is, I've never seen that f'n hat in my life but I respond, "ta bien, lo que tu diga."

In the hallway while we wait for the elevator, she insists she wants to go to Sears in Newport Centre Mall in New Jersey to buy the machine. I try convincing her to lets please just go to Queens and get the thing there, but to no avail. So instead of hopping on the f'n E right there on 23rd and 8th we gotta' walk all the way to 6th ave and 23rd street and hop in that dungeon of a train station, the Path. I hate that train station. I feel like I'm breathing toxic fumes every time I'm down there. We finally get there after like 20 minutes because my mom walks like she doesn't have a care in the world. She's been in the city more than half her life and she still walks like a country gal. It takes us about an hour to get the f'n Mall because of track trouble and her slow walking but we finally get there.

We walk through the mall, I walk slightly ahead following the signs for this f'n place while keeping an eye on my Mom at the same time because I want to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. I swear, It's like she's my toddler. We get to Sears, find the appliance area and make our way to the Washing Machines. There are like 50 sales people and just my mom and I. Right away we're approached by this very nice 60's Guyanese salesman. He shows us this machine and that machine and seems quite knowledgable. My mom then focuses on a Kenmore Elite ! She want's a Kenmore, because the other one was a Kenmore and it lasted 20 years and so on. I'm a little concerned because this machine is digital, lots of buttons and sh!t. I can see the sweet Guyanese salesman has become subtly excited. This machine is top of the line. I suppose it means a nice commission for him. He begins to try and show me what the machine can do but he's wrong about every other thing. I kindly correct him and he puzzled a bit, his spectacles low on his nose one hand on his chin, intently listening and agrees.

My mother is convinced. She likes this one. "Eta' maquina, va' combinar con mi estufa y nevera" she says. I say to the salesman, ok brother I'll take this one. The salesman responds in his heavy Guyanese accent, "no don't worry, you're going to get a brand new one from the warehouse." This dude thought I was talking about taking the sample machine off the floor, right then and their even though it wasn't even an option. Anyway, now the real fun begins. This transaction should have taken all of 15 minutes and ended up taking about an hour and some change.

Guyana and my mom and I walk through the empty store and get to a cash register. He begins to explain to me the options in financing and such. He gives me one I'm interested in. It included 5% off if a store credit card is opened, free delivery and 6 months 0% interest. That sounded good to me so we proceeded. All I needed now was my mothers Social.

I have a paper and pen in hand. Mom, "Dame' tu Social." She looks at me strangely and I can practically hear her brain working. She slowly gives me a number. I write it down. I'm like, "Ma', tu ta segura??." She's like, "Si." We go through the process with old Guyana. The man types like 1 word per 5 minutes, it's f'n torture. We plug in all the information and now It's time for the Social, he strikes the Enter button and the name on the screen reads, Adam something in Pennsylvania ! I turn to my mother who's face is flushed red from all the clothes she has on and said, "Ma'. Eso no es tu numero. Coje tu tiempo y damelo otra vez. Ok." She turns around, sounds like she's mumbling a prayer. Gives me another number. "Ma'. Tu ta' segura'??" Still looking a bit not sure, she answers, "Si." Let's try it again Guyana. We go through the whole slow process again. Get to the Social, plug it in, strike the Enter button; a man from Montana pops up ! I'm about to loose it. "Ma", I say all calmly, "Ese no es, tu nuuummmerrrro." She's been fumbling with a ton of little papers she has in her purse, I think she's even called my busy ass, Executive brother who lives in meetings to ask him about her Social. "Ma! tu numero??" She looks at me again with her Marlon Brando hat on and gives me another number. "Ma, You are killing me. Tu ta' segura??" She looks at me with sheepish eyes and says, "Si." "You ready sir", I say to the salesman. Dude is cool as ice. "Yes he says." He then begins the process again but this time I'm pretty sure he misses a step. he now begins to plug in information manually. I'm a little worried. We plug the social and it goes through. Finally, I'm thinking. He announces, 50 thousand dollars credit. "Your mother has great credit he says." 50k sir ! Are you sure? Here it is, he proudly shows me the freshly printed, temporary paper credit card. I'm thinking, does my mom own massive stock in Apple or something?? 50k is a lot fn' credit ! I go along with it because now I'm exhausted. I see he's punching in the information for the sale as slow as molasses. I turn a sec and hear the machine printing the receipt. The sweet sound of me getting the F out of here. Then I noticed, he missed a bunch of stuff. He missed the 5% 0ff. It was 12 months instead of 6 months, There was a hauling fee that was to be removed. I'm like Guyana, this is all wrong man. He looks at me, apologizes and announces, "Not a problem, we can fix this right away." Cancels it. I watch him very, very closely now. I review it, it's now perfect. He runs the receipt. A message on the computer says to call Citi Bank. I'm like what F now!

Guyana calls the f'n bank. He hands the phone to my mother but the customer service dude on the other line only speaks English and I can't do the translation because of confidentiality and shit. We wait for a translator. Not long after the translator is on the line. The man is peppering my mother with questions of streets and addresses she's never heard of. After 10 minutes of this shit I take the phone and start to ask the f'n guy what the exact problem is. He can't tell me, but I get it out of him because I knew what it was. I said, "Is this an identity issue?? " The customer service dude, pauses and reluctantly says, "SI." I hang up the phone all frustrated and shit and look at little Guyana and my mom. I huddled up with them and I said, "You two biejitos are killing me!" My mom has given me the wrong number three times and Guyana has plugged in the wrong information twice !

I take my mom to the side and say, "Ma! Por el amor de dios ( i'm an Atheist by the way ), piensa bien o los vamos !! Ya no puedo mas !" My sheet of paper is riddled with wrong social security numbers. She finally thinks she's got it. "Ma! la ultima vez y lo vamos." She agrees because I'm about to kill somebody. I look at Guyana and calmly tell him, scratch this entire f'n thing, we're starting from the begining. At this point, I've seen him do it so many times that I take over and plug in all the information in under two minutes. I punch in the goddamn number and finally her name pops up. It's my sweet mothers name, IT FUCKING WORKED ! We ran the purchase and we were done. I calmly scolded old Guyana and told him to be more careful in the future when it comes to manual entries. He agreed, we shook hands, I turn to my mother who now has her big ass coat at shoulder length and says to me in English:

"I'm Hungry."

Current day:

My mom receives three different credit cards from Sears that I have to sort out.

I've got all sorts of hand written instructions on the Washing Machine so that she can stop complaining to me that she has no Idea what any of the buttons mean even though I warned her.

This is my life.