Going to the cleaners . . . getting taken to the cleaners

I just dropped an insane amount of cleaning at a cleaners close to the new place. If my experience dropping this crap off is an indication of things to come, I have a feeling that I will be driving 20 miles out of my way to take my stuff to my old cleaners on S. 1st St. that I loved. When I first walked into the new cleaners, it was abundantly clear that the woman working the counter has a very limited command of the English language. Fine, whatever, it just takes a little longer than normal for her to get my phone number. And about five minutes for her to get my name into the computer.

Then I pull out the button-downs that need to be laundered. She tells me, "dry clean, same price." First of all, I doubt it's the same price. Second, I want them laundered and pressed, not dry cleaned. They're cotton; I only take them to the cleaners because I am insanely lazy and like a pressed shirt. I relent because the language barrier prevents me from understanding what she's getting at. Do they not launder? Are my shirts too small to be laundered? I guess they'll be dry cleaned.

Then she goes through and counts everything. Lots of cardigans since I apparently can't live without cardigans. I look at the receipts to see that everything is there and I saw that she rung up three dresses (at like $20 a pop). I point out that there's only 2 dresses. She picks up the dresses plus a silk empire-waist top and says, "this is dress." Yeah, if "dress" means "flowy and over-priced," then it is a dress. However, seeing as how this thing barely goes past my hips and the word "dress" has yet to encompass anything flowy and over-priced, it's still a shirt. It takes a little while to communicate to her that the shirt is not a dress. I'm pretty sure she was pretending to not understand me. When she finally relented and changed it on the order receipt she seemed all put out, sighing and whatnot, like it was sooooo unreasonable for me to not want to get gouged any more than this place is already gouging me.

I hate change. And this experience shows that I am right to hate change.