Every proper business must have rules. My favorite self-service laundry in Nice is no exception. I think it is especially wise of the owner to forbid nude chests, for example. Naked bottoms are not similarly banned, although this may or not be assumed. Anyway, half a naked person is quite enough for one viewing. It must be a French thing.
Signs on the walls say that animals are not permitted either, except apparently for, those tiny dogs who manage to sneak inside the purses or the unexposed cleavage of their owners, bypassing the guard at the door. But then I’ve been told, French dogs are not animals: they eat at tables, never have to walk on their own four feet, and are permitted to deposit their waste wherever they please. My gosh; they are just like politicians!
But the ultimate injunction at my laundry has been reserved for bare feet – apparently the ultimate insult to those of us who must use the public laundries and a sinister threat to public health. I am not sure how many people actually pad around barefooted through the streets of the Old Nice, but not many. One glance down where we are all walking, and they would be properly shod in seconds. I refer again to the non-animals the French may affectionately call, “tou-tou.”
The woman who owns this laundry is a true entrepreneur – she owns three shops in different Côte d’Azur villages, and everything in this one is clean and in proper working order. I have even seen her climb over and behind the washing machines to recover socks and lacy undies from the drains. So that’s where they go!
