Every week or so, in the morning on the way to the train, I haul a large bag of laundry four blocks or so to drop off at the big laundromat on 31st Street. These bags tend to run between 25 and 35 pounds. I'm usually grasping the bag around the middle, with both arms, so that by the time I arrive, dripping with sweat, the bag is all mashed out of shape and wasp-waisted, with half the laundry pushed up to the top of the bag, straining against the cinch.

Inevitably, when I plop this bag down on the scale, the top half slumps a bit to one side. What I find curious is that the laundry attendant always feels a need to plump up the bag and rebalance it before reading the scale. I'm not convinced that this has any effect on the reading, but apparently the workers are afraid that any poundage which is not sitting directly over the pan will not register.

I'm surprised. I really thought I'd find more physics majors working in laundromats.