Wash’n’Bowl

It’s not as though it’s such a crazy idea. You would think, in a world where everyone is looking for the next angle, that somebody would have done this already. I’m speaking of course of the Laundromat / Bowling Alley, or Wash’n’Bowl^TM. By all rights these should be all over the place by now, a fixture of our cultural landscape. And yet I look about me and see nary a one.

And it’s not as though our culture avoids hybrid experiences. There are, for example, the ubiquitous café / bookstores. These started out as novelties around the campuses of Harvard and Berkeley, and quickly spread far and wide. Now it’s hard to find a Barnes and Noble that doesn’t nestle a Starbucks tenderly within its bosom.

In fact, an entire culture has grown around these hybrid places, and the clever trick they play upon their customers. The trick goes something like this: Every day the most brilliant minds of our generation can be found comfortably ensconced in these establishments. Each of these customers takes a book off the shelf and reads it for hours. Here’s the good part: When they are done, these customers put the book right back on the shelf, and feel as though they’ve pulled one over on old B&N. Meanwhile, of course, said brilliant minds have spent a small fortune in coffee sold at inflated prices (you know, that weirdly burnt stuff they sell at Starbucks instead of coffee, which everyone pretends is delicious because a cup of it costs as much as an SUV). You can bet that Starbucks shares their profits with the bookstore.

The combination works because overpriced coffee and books go together particularly well. There is something just so perfectly collegiate about reading “Wild Sargasso Sea” while sipping espressos that cost more than your college tuition. The whole experience is pretty much like crack for English majors.

So why shouldn’t some of our more blue collar life experiences get in on the act? What could possibly be more perfect, if you’ve just fed your quarters into a big old washing machine at the laundromat, than to slip into some comfortable bowling shoes and knock off a few frames? It’s not as if you’re going to find a bowling alley at home. In fact, this might even encourage people who have their own home Maytags to wash their tighty-whities at the laundromat. It becomes a social activity, you see.

And why stop there? Through the magic of modern networked computers, the Wash’n’Bowl management can track your bowling score, and use that to give you automatic discounts. Imagine the pride you will feel, upon bowling that perfect game, to be able to tell your friends that you’ve just won a free tumble dry.

It doesn’t get much better than that, does it?