TACOMA, Wash. — Local 33-year-old Darrell Ornsby realized yesterday that “the universe is a lie and life is a joke” as he transferred a load of socks from the washer to the dryer, sources in the midst of an existential crisis confirmed.
“I don’t know how it happened. Who even cares?” mumbled Ornsby while curled on the floor and staring despondently at a balled-up T-shirt. “One moment I was moving those socks, and then… then I just couldn’t. It’s like you just do the same things, over and over — wash, dry, fold, repeat, wash, dry, fold, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat…”
“I used to wonder why I would sometimes find my mom just looking out the window into the woods behind our house in the middle of the night,” he added, “and now I think I understand.”
Laundromat owner Clyde Robinson saw Ornsby’s existential breakdown firsthand.
“Seriously, can we get this guy outta here? He’s really starting to freak me out,” said Robinson while rigging the change machine to never work properly. “I don’t see what his fucking issue is. Everybody has tough shit to deal with, but you just gotta work though it. Just wash, dry, fold, repeat, wash, dry, fold, repeat, wash, dr… OH MY GOD, I’VE WASTED MY LIFE!”
Philosophy professor Sturgill Tungstenman has conducted experiments on the subject of laundry-related crises.
“In my latest study, I observed the effect that doing laundry for 72 hours straight had on 10 volunteer graduate students,” Tungstenman stated. “Six suffered complete psychological breakdowns within the first nine hours. On the second day, three others quit academia entirely to pursue lives as cemetery drifters. Only one subject made it to the very end of the experiment, and by that point he seemed to believe himself to be some kind of messiah — he insisted that he be referred to as ‘Cardigan Christ’ and claimed to hold prophetic dominion of ‘the underpants diciples.’ Strangely, it actually made complete sense to the three researchers who brushed their teeth and got in their car to drive the same path to work that day — just like they’ve done every day for what may have been the best years of their lives.”
Ornsby, in an effort to mitigate future existential breakdowns, has since reduced his wardrobe to a single polyester jumpsuit, which he will have dry-cleaned precisely once per year.