I want to tell you a story that happened many years ago, as recently as today and will happen again tomorrow. It is a story about a deceptively familiar place where securing the basic necessities of life, health care, housing, transportation and communication requires persistence to overcome one obstacle after another. I call this place The Parallel Universe.
Trila watched her washing machine slide off the trailer and land with a thud on the gravel. The well-meaning volunteers who arrived bright and early to pack up her belongings and deliver them to her new housing unit, lifted it off the ground, carried it inside, attached the hose and said goodbye. Trila spent the new few days settling into her new home, arranging furniture and hanging her collection of postcards and photographs in small wooden frames on the walls of the living room.
When I showed up for our get-together Wednesday, Trila had a bathtub full of wet clothes and blankets. I stood in the doorway watching water dribble off the blouse she was hand wringing over the tub.
“Why aren’t you using your drier?”
“The washer’s busted. It fills with water and washes, but it won’t spin. I have to take the wet stuff to the bathroom and wring it out, then carry it back to the drier.”
“That’s an awful lot of work.”
She straightened up. “It’s killing my back.”
For weeks Trila lugged sopping wet blankets from the washer to the tub and back to the drier. She told her neighbor about the broken washer and the growing pile of dirty clothes. “Put clothes in a laundry basket and leave it on your porch. My daughter can pick it up and bring it back when the clothes are dry.” The arrangement lasted a couple of weeks before the neighbor asked Trila for money for the water and electricity. It was clear to both women, Trila needed a washing machine to do what washing machines are supposed to do.
“I need a new, used washing machine, Patricia,” she said. “I’ll pay for it somehow.”
I whipped out my iPhone, googled used appliances and located a store tucked away at the back of a tiny shopping center five miles away. A phone call affirmed the present of two used washers for sale, so we drove over. Trila chose the one that would fit in her kitchen. After a bit of negotiation between me and the store owner, all agreed Trila would pay off the washer in monthly installments of $80. That left the down payment of $60. With a couple of $5 bills, four ones and a fistful of change, Trila came up short. Forty dollars stood between her pocketbook and the end of lugging armloads of sopping wet laundry to the bathroom and back to the drier in the kitchen. The shopkeeper was sympathetic and lowered the monthly payment, but the down payment remained.
Trila was frustrated, disappointed and above all embarrassed. Her previous machine along with the drier, were a gift from the Habitat for Humanity folks; the volunteers responsible for the washer’s demise were sweet and generous with their time; yet here she was stuck between another rock and hard place. Standing side by side in The Parallel Universe, I knew the solution lay with me. I added $40 to Trila’s $20, the washer was installed three days later, and the busted one hauled away for free!
“We see this all the time,” the cashier told me. “The owner does what he can to help customers buy the things they need, but so many can’t come up with the down payment.”
PS Trila is paying me back in $10 installments. She will clear her washing machine debt by the Fourth of July.
* To protect their identity, Trila is a composite of these women. All the stories are true and describe my experience as companion in each case.
Patricia Thomas has volunteered as a Lead Hostess at Hope House for nine years. Currently she is experiencing firsthand the numerous obstacles the homeless encounter as they attempt to get off the street.
