1) Skuddsy—Skuddsy dresses like Tony Hawk if instead of good at skating he was really good at meth. He sits at the front with like five to six garbage bags of clothes. Maybe not even clothing. Rags. Shoes. Posters. Skuddsy’s living—for the fucking time BEING, dude—just outside the shop in a camper. He’s working on his GED (court-appointed), but he’s in the immediate moment, working on shaking one out of the detergent vending machine.

2) Barry—Barry wears the last pair of Lee’s bermuda shorts ever made, hands out bible tracts to all passerby, and is constantly reconfiguring the cell phone holder on his belt loop. He has immaculately clean fingernails. Barry lives by himself, has a simple mind, and ever-so-carefully will fold his tighty-whities into nice eight-foot stacks.

3) Sandra and Jesus José—Sandra washes her delicates and endless afghan throw rugs while her 5-year-old son, Jesus José, whom she has tried placating with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (King Size), chases rubber balls into the heavily-trafficked street. Sandra is slender, vulgar, and has eyes in the back of her head. Jesus José is cute as a button and is an unapologetic little shit. When you try making small talk, Jesus José pretends he doesn’t speak English—which is demonstrated to be false the moment Sandra, after shoving her quarters back into the bookbag with one strap, yells, “I will make your ass red, little boy, if you don’t park it here next to the fishing magazines!”

4) Kyle Kyleson—A Ph.D candidate in statistical analysis, Kyle Kyleson is one of those vile people who posts JPG images of his Mint.com reminders on Facebook to brag about his savings. He’s also sympathetic to ironically non-ironic T-shirts. He will never be married (“the tax breaks are not what they make them out to be, man”). And he brings a measuring cup and egg beater to the laundromat to pour out—then beat to proper consistency—his eight ounces of liquid detergent.

5) Holly—Holly spends 3 weeks a year in the fall as a full-fledged fairy, employed by the region’s renaissance festival and speaking in broken iambic pentameter. She spends the other 49 weeks sleeping with as many alcoholic construction workers as possible. Holly cleans rooms at the Hotel 8 on the highway and can often be seen with aforementioned construction worker, washing “all of my god-damned towels” or “the god-damned bedsheets again.” They take up the TV area, watching exclusively the “TV Guide Channel” debating which looks like a better show to watch. In her off-time, she circles dates on her cat calendar for when the local 1980s hair-metal cover band will return to the Vile Moose (a local club she likes to spill the bourbon she’s currently Tide-marking out on her shirt at).

6) Maximus—Maximus is the resident bull mastiff. He is owned by the leaser’s landlord and will venture out from the office in back during peak hours to sniff your just warmly-dried underwear. In two weeks, Maximus will chase after Jesus José’s errant rubber ball and be struck blind-dead by a cement truck, so just let him have his fun.

– Chris Vondracek

Photos courtesy Slideshow Bruce, El Miatou, docblash, Neohypofilm, Chelsee T, midori.witch, and LegalAdmin