Welcome to Magic Laundry, the most depressing place on earth

In a turn of events I cannot describe, I ended up at the Magic Laundry on South Monaco Parkway and Iliff Avenue last night at 10 p.m. Positioned in the back, shabby corner of a dead strip mall left label-scarred by its now-vacant anchor store, King Soopers, the 24-hour laundromat sits, servicing all types of people who look like they would rather be at the dentist than this total hellhole. I took the opportunity to take some amateur camera-phone photos of a place that, if it were a restaurant, would have been shut down by the health department long ago. We're not sure what a transient is, but it isn't allowed. And for a place that's under "surveilence" 24 hours a day, it's obvious that the cameras positioned everywhere can't see how filthy this joint is. This might be the smartest business venture ever; Start a laundromat that's open 24 hours a day, and have no employees working in it after 8 p.m. The place can practically run itself while you make money off of faulty dryers that drink quarters! Unfortunately, a laundromat can't clean up after itself, as we can see from this fake potted plant full of what looks like several years' worth of accumulated dust. Gross. Into vintage Internetting? This is the spot. For just 25 cents for every ten minutes, you can utilize Magic Laundry's lightning-speed DSL to check that Craigslist ad you posted last week for your green leather sectional. Or maybe Google the location and pick up times for a bus to Black Hawk -- as a patron at the laundromat asked me to do with my phone. When I politely declined (because I didn't feel like continuing to engage with him), he got very huffy and pushed his laundry cart into mine. Apparently, there are also no social rules at the Magic Laundromat. For the same price, we could also utilize the laundromat's PlayStation, which was conveniently located right above a trash can. Huh. This warning could be taken more seriously if the glass doors didn't require slamming in order to shut. Or if the dryers actually dried clothes, instead of just eating your money and making you want to slam the doors. Having the flea that was the mascot for the Mile High Flea Market (now known as the Mile High Marketplace) for so many years painted on the wall of an establishment that cleans clothes seems contradictory to attracting business. But what do I know.

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