Archive for July 5th, 2008
Taken to the cleaners
When I put on a pair of pants for work in the morning, I am often pleasantly surprised when I put my hands in my pocket and I find some money – often a few dollar bills or even a 5 or a 10. The other day, a friend asked me what happened to the money you leave in your pants when you go to the dry cleaners. And sure enough, when I put on a pair of pants that just returned from the dry cleaners, I never get that surprise. The pockets are always empty. Why is that? I do my best thinking in the shower so one day I tried to analyze this.
This means that when i take my pants off my body at the end of the day, I dont clean out my front pockets. I take out my wallet from the back but I fail to check the front pockets. When the pants come off, they either get hung back up if I didnt spill anything on them during the day, or they go in a pile to go to the dry cleaners. Or, if I dont feel like hanging them up they go into the dry cleaner pile too. So if I am leaving money in the pockets when i hang them up, I must be leaving money in them when I put them in the dry cleaner pile. That led me to ponder more questions.
Why does the owner of the dry cleaners drive a Jaguar? Why did they just remodel the store with marble and fancy new electronic gadgets?
Here is the theory I came up with. Occaisionally I do get a little envelope attached to my pants with a quarter in it, or even a quarter and a dime. I think the dry cleaners build your confidence by doing this. They draw you in by giving you your change back, and you feel confident that your dry cleaner is giving you your money back that you leave in the pocket. Then they keep the bills and throw you that envelope with change every now and then just to keep you from asking questions.
I feel sorry for the people who just work on shirts – they dont get to empty any pants pockets. that must be the lower tier of the dry cleaning hierarchy. When you’ve proven yourself, you get moved up to the pants department – they dont give you a raise – but you get the double secret “pocket” bonus.
