The thing I love about New York, or should I say one of the things since this thing isn’t necessarily the one defining thing I love about it, is that it’s full of surprises.

Last night I had one of those hellish nights in which nothing really went my way. My body, ragged from four hours of sleep, was against me. Sunday not caring it was Sunday, and me having to work through it, was against me. And the subway, perpetually under construction and leading a rousing game of “Let’s see how many times we can make Karen transfer in what should be a 30-minute trip,” was against me.

In the morning, I fared no better. I had more work at the office and laundry (one of those frustrating New York things you can’t do on weekdays unless you don’t mind spending your post-work fatigue watching telenovelas or an extra $25 or so having someone else do it for you).

I carried the cart and its me-sized bags down three flights of stairs before stopping at the lobby long enough to think: It’s Labor Day. Which is kind of a holiday in some circles. Is the laundromat even open?

Fumbling through my always frozen BlackBerry, I tried to find the phone number for my usual local laundromat.

But which one was it? There are like, I don’t know, 30 in a five-block radius. No matter. I picked the first one that came up in search results, convinced its comrades kept a similar schedule.

Irregular hours, said the automated voice.

And the others?

BlackBerry. Ever frozen.

Fudgefudgetyfudge.

I lugged the cart and its me-sized contents back up three flights of stairs, stormed through the apartment, searched for the number on my laptop to no avail, resolved to walk the three or four blocks to see for myself, maybe grab a cup of coffee just to soothe my soul, perhaps some breakfast too, and hopefully stumble upon a laundromat open long enough for me to cross off one thing on my to-do list.

Stomp. Stomp. Stomp.

Four. letter. words.

Scowl scowl scowl.

And then I found this. I never did do my laundry.