"Wrestling With Unmentionables at the Laundromat"

By Jerry Zezima

Hearst Connecticut Media Group

It may be true that everything comes out in the wash, but it’s also true that if you’re in a laundromat, you shouldn’t take off your bra in front of other customers before doing the wash.

That’s the valuable lesson I learned recently after the dryer conked out and my wife, who has never, to my knowledge, removed her brassiere in public, dispatched me to the laundromat to finish a load of wet clothes.

“You see everything in this place,” said manager Angel Lopez. “One night, a lady started getting undressed so she could put her clothes in the washer. She was topless and was just wearing her underwear. I went over to her and said, ‘Really? You couldn’t do this before you got here?’ ”

“Maybe,” I suggested helpfully, “it was her only bra.”

“Listen,” Angel said, “men are just as bad. Like the guy last night who told me that if he didn’t do the laundry right, his wife said he was a dead man. He said, ‘Are you going to help me?’ I said, ‘No. I want to see if she’s going to kill you.’ ”

“My wife is too nice to resort to murder over socks and bath towels,” I said. “How about your wife?”

Angel smiled and replied, “I’m not married.”

Not that he wouldn’t be a good catch, even though he is widely considered a bad guy.

“In addition to working at the laundromat,” Angel said, “I’m a professional wrestler.”

He wrestles under the name of Cano Lopez, the Exorcist.

“Cano is my mother’s maiden name,” said Angel, who has “Cano” tattooed on his right forearm and “Lopez” on his left.

“In the ring, I’m a villain,” he said. “People boo me, but between matches, kids come up to me and say, ‘Can I have your autograph?’ ”

“Do you wrestle in the WWE?” I asked. “It’s headquartered in my hometown of Stamford, Connecticut.”

“I wish!” said Angel, who’s affiliated with East Coast Pro Wrestling.

At 53, he’s one of the oldest wrestlers on the circuit. But at 5-foot-8 and 227 pounds, he’s one tough geezer.

“You have to be,” said Angel. “We get hit with steel chairs, jump off buckles and land on wooden boards. We’re like actors who do our own stunts.” He winced and added, “I’m 53, but my body says 83.”

Angel’s brother, Marc Static, is a wrestler, too. They’re two of 24 siblings, 12 brothers and 12 sisters. “I’m No. 17,” Angel said.

“There must have been a lot of laundry in your family,” I noted.

“Mountains of it,” Angel said. “It prepared me for my job here.”

And he does it extremely well. In addition to being an amateur psychologist (“I listen to everybody’s problems,” he said), Angel is an appliance engineer, a lint expert and a folding consultant.

“Did you know that a buildup of lint could cause a fire in the dryer?” he said.

“No,” I answered. “Just to be safe, I’d better clean it out of my belly button, too.”

After using one of the dryers without starting a three-alarm blaze, I asked Angel for help in folding the towels, socks and underwear in my laundry basket.

“The towels go corner to corner, then fold them again, the long way, in a trifold,” he instructed. “The edges go in the closet.”

The opening of one sock in each pair is folded over the mate “so they won’t become separated,” Angel said. “And underwear is pretty easy. Now you try it.”

I passed the folding test with all the flying colors of my towels, socks and boxer shorts.

“Your wife will be impressed,” said Angel.

“Next time I come here, I’ll bring her,” I replied. “And I promise she won’t take off her bra.”

Copyright 2019 by Jerry Zezima