The Code.

At the laundromat a couple weeks ago I ran into another patron I had never met before and we got to talking.  Her name was Sabrina, a smart, sassy fun lady who was super friendly while at the same time unobtrusive.  The exact reason going to a laundromat can be fun.*

(*Yeah, I get it.  It's easier -- oh, so much more easier! -- to do it at home.  And, trust me, I wish I had that back again. But, just as with other sacrifices I made by moving into the city with an amazingly inexpensive apartment, I had to get rid of my washer and dryer so it's the laundromat for me!

In all honesty, if I ever get annoyed with that, or hearing folks and traffic at 3am or any number of other things that come with Big City Living, I always just imagine I live in the Atlanta of the North: New York City.  A city I totally adore, by the way, and if I could afford to live, probably would.  I sometimes imagine the place I have here and what I'd pay for it there for the same amount.   Someday I would love to tell my friends who do live there what I'm getting here just to hear them laugh at me and mail me the shoebox or whatever I could get there for the same (COD of course). But that's another quest for another day.  Today, I just thought that: hey! If I did live in that shoebox (who am I kidding? HALF a shoebox) I could get for what I get here, I'd be doing my laundry at a laundromat there anyway.  But I digress.)

So we're back at my Atlanta neighborhood laundromat and Sabrina and I are discussing what she calls The Code.

This was a day I went to do laundry after work because I worked on deadline through my lunch hour instead of doing it then instead (there's an incredibly cheap one near work where I can get it all done on my lunch hour and sometimes do instead if I'm able).  When I can't this is a good place to go.  In the heart of Midtown, great proprietors, great establishment.  Looks clean, smells clean, free wi-fi, machines work, stand-up video games to play (Pac-Man, yo!), bar right next door if I feel like a pint, etc.etc.  And one where I actually talk to folks instead of doing work on my phone quietly during my lunch hour chore.

Apparently I was there that day for this conversation.  Sabrina's inside on The Code.

I had never thought about it before, but I do now and I'm curious what all y'all think as well.

She said she had starting using this establishment when she lived around the corner and, like me, gave away her clothes cleaning and drying mechanisms when her new place hadn't hook-ups for them.  She now lives downtown instead -- a whole two mile easy walk away -- but continues to come to this place because of The Code.

The Code is not the cleanliness or the amenities: The Code is the patrons who don't steal your shit.

That sort of took me aback at first:  I've actually left my stuff in cycles to run an errand and come back to it; never really thought that people would go in and take my things.  But she says it happens in some neighborhoods.  That folks won't care if they fit or not or even that thievery is wrong. She said the first time it happened in her new neighborhood is why she decided to drive a couple miles to come back to this place every time again instead.

The Code is not about whether people steal or not though:  it's more that somehow, by instinct, you know when you walk into a place whether or not people there know The Code or not.  There's a feel about the place.  Without ever talking to other patrons there, there's a feel about the place that you and your belongings are safe.

For example: do any of you ever go take your laptop to a coffee shop to work?  If you're there for any length of time (and drinking coffee), you'll most likely have to get up to use the restroom, yes?  And at those places, have you ever had a person ask you if you would mind keeping an eye on their things or ask them to do the same?  To perfect strangers!  Or have you ever witnessed anyone else just get up and do that without even asking anyone else, just somehow trusting it would be there when they got back?

Of course you have! Who brings their laptop to the potty? We don't because The Code is there.  There's a something there -- a sort of safe zone governed by The Code -- where no one else would even touch your things, let alone steal them. 

How do we automatically know which places are in The Code and which aren't?  I'm not sure, but somehow we do. 

Let's get away from the coffee shops and hang out at the airport  for a minute, shall we?  You're traveling alone with a roll-about carry-on bag and, let's face it: it's a pain in the ass to have to roll that thing back down the concourse to the restroom or the Cinnabon. Have you ever asked a total stranger to keep an eye on it for you or have one ask you to of theirs?   (I will admit here I always take mine with me because I'm a safety girl like that; but I have had others ask me to watch theirs and have done so with no problem.) The total stranger probably wasn't someone just sitting next to you -- it was someone you chatted with about your destination or your hometown or your love of the same sports team because you had a similar t-shirt on -- but, nonetheless, a total stranger!  How do we know, instinctively, that we're in The Code's zone when we do this? They could just be total players afterall.

I'm willing to say none of you reading this is innocent or naive about the world (and, heh. Here I am assuming I have readers even *grin*).  We know the risks in our world.  We're smart people. We work hard for our money and don't want our stuff stolen.  But, still, we would do some of these things in *specific* communities or establishments or locations in a way that innocent, naive or trusting others would all the time, knowing we wouldn't be taken advantage of when they would.

How do we know this?

Because The Code. We somehow recognize The Code.

It exists, no?