ROSEDALE, Miss. — Local punk Kerry Gagne is stuck with several loads of unwashed laundry that she was planning to wash at her parents’ home before their Thanksgiving plans were canceled in compliance with COVID-19 precautions.
“I do my best to avoid going home for any reason, and it’s hard to get out of everything. But this year, God threw me a bone and no one can go anywhere. I thought I had it made ‘til I remembered I saved all my laundry for that six-hour visit,” Gagne stated. “I just really wish I didn’t put all my eggs in one basket. Not literally these baskets, though. There’s definitely no room for anything in any of them at this point. Three of them aren’t even baskets — they’re trash bags that used to have a bunch of leaves in them that I stole from my neighbor’s yard, and those are full, too. Fuck me.”
Gagne’s parents made the hard decision to cancel their family’s annual dinner plans, which they report was surprisingly hard on their 35-year-old adult daughter.
“Ker never really seemed to care much about the holiday, as far as I know. But when I told her that her father and I weren’t hosting and she can’t come over, she yelled the ‘F’ word really loud,” said Gagne’s mother, Frances. “I knew she liked my pecan pie, but I didn’t think she liked it that much. I feel just terrible. I’ll try to send her one in the mail.”
Experts who foresaw such outcomes occurring across the country are prepared and standing by.
“Thousands of young adults, and older adults who are still major fuck ups, will be left without any way to do unreasonable amounts of laundry at once and for free now that Thanksgiving visits are being canceled. We’re ready to pick up that slack,” said Wash-O-Matic owner/operator Rosie Givens. “To prepare for what we expect will be the largest influx of users possibly ever, we made sure to section off at least half of our dryers, jammed up the last washer in every row with a weirdly bent Canadian quarter, and set the change machine to only accept $20s. All in all, we really didn’t have to do much — we’re just happy to help.”
At press time, Gagne was counting her remaining socks against a calendar to see if she could possibly hold out until Christmas.