  We discuss laser dressed dipolar and Van der Waals interactions between atoms
and polar molecules, so that a cold atomic gas with laser admixed Rydberg
levels acts as a designed reservoir for both elastic and inelastic collisional
processes. The elastic scattering channel is characterized by large elastic
scattering cross sections and repulsive shields to protect from close encounter
collisions. In addition, we discuss a dissipative (inelastic) collision where a
spontaneously emitted photon carries away (kinetic) energy of the collision
partners, thus providing a significant energy loss in a single collision. This
leads to the scenario of rapid thermalization and cooling of a molecule in the
mK down to the \mu K regime by cold atoms.
