The Laundromat

My mornings begin with coffee and the unreasonable hope that humanity has managed to behave itself overnight. This hope survives for roughly the time it takes the machine to finish pouring. Then I open the news, because apparently peace makes me suspicious, and within minutes I am standing in my kitchen holding a mug while somebody on the internet confidently explains something they have misunderstood for money. This particular morning started with money laundering. Everyone knows the story, in the loose and dangerous sense of "knows" that usually means nobody remembers where they heard it. Al Capone supposedly bought laundromats, fed his dirty cash through them, and gave the practice its beautifully literal name. Clean shirts, clean money, symbolism doing a frankly suspicious amount of work. It is such a perfect origin story that checking it feels rude. So naturally, I checked it. The laundromat connection is folklore. The word "laundromat" itself barely existed in his lifetime; it…