Apparently I’m some sort of Lust God for my dry-cleaning lady.
For a long time, there were two dry-cleaners relatively close to my house – Sunny and Greenwood. It didn’t matter to me which one I used, but through habit I tended to frequent Sunny Cleaners. And then one fateful day there was a new lady behind the counter at Sunny. She was a short, fairly round middle-aged woman of Asian descent.
You know how once or twice in your life, you’ll meet someone who you just know is your soulmate? You’re instantly attracted to everything about them – their personality, their looks, their hair, the way a piece of spinach can get stuck in their front teeth and you don’t even mind, the cute little wart they have on their eyeball, etc. Everything about the person just combines into an overwhelming gestalt that completely fries your circuits.
That didn’t happen here. I barely noticed the woman the first time I saw her. I dropped off my dress shirts, got my little paper with the pickup time on it, and left. I seriously doubt I could’ve told you anything about her, up to and including how many heads she had; she was just one of the people I happened to see during that day.
I returned a couple of days later to pick up my shirts. When I walked in the door she immediately jumped off her little stool and gave me a big smile. “Meestah Sauron!” she said happily. “So good to see you again! I have shuts for you! Velly clean! I make sure!”
I was a little taken aback – most people don’t react this way to seeing me. Even my dog tends to give me a laconic wave when I get home, rather than barking and leaping excitedly like other dogs do for THEIR masters. I figured this lady was just overly happy about her dry-cleaning gig. I took my shirts from her and left, with her telling me “You come back soon now! Bring more shuts!”
This happened a couple more times – I’d drop off or pick up my dry cleaning, and the lady would be absolutely beside herself whenever she saw me, practically peeing herself with joy. And it wasn’t just because she loved her dry-cleaning career; sometimes there would be other customers in the store when I was there, and they didn’t get the same fawning treatment. It got to the point that I couldn’t simply drop off my shirts and leave – she’d want to talk with me, and would try her best to keep me there waaaay longer than necessary.
I mentioned to my lovely and talented wife, Aries28, that our dry-cleaning lady apparently had a crush on me. She laughed, and laughed, and laughed, then stopped to eat and sleep, and then laughed some more. She thought I was exaggerating the whole thing, or that I had an overly developed belief in my own sexiness and rugged appeal. Apparently women don’t typically develop crushes on middle-aged, slightly overweight guys. Which is a flaw in the way the universe is designed, if you ask me.
“Fine,” I said. “You take the clothes to the cleaners from now on. I don’t want to be around her.”
So the next time we had dry-cleaning to be done, Aries28 dropped off the clothes. When I got home that evening, she said “The dry-cleaning lady has a crush on you.” Apparently when she went in to drop off the clothes, the dry-cleaning lady, upon learning her name, said, “Where Meestah Sauron? Why he not drop off clothes? Will he pick up clothes? Tell him I say ‘hi!’”
I was afraid there would be a massive catfight between my wife and the dry-cleaning lady. Lord knows how possessive women can be, and I just knew Aries28 wouldn’t stand for someone else so obviously fawning over me like this. I voiced this opinion.
“I think it’s cute!” she said. “She misses you. You handle all the dry-cleaning stuff from now on. Give her a thrill.”
So being the forthright, take-charge kind of Man that I am, accustomed to facing adversity head-on and not shying away from difficult tasks, I immediately started taking all the dry-cleaning to the OTHER store, Greenwood Cleaners. Which worked fine for a few years, until they closed a couple of months ago. Now Sunny is the only cleaners anywhere near my house.
Cue ominous music.
I went there shortly after the new year started. Maybe, I thought, she won’t be working there any more. Maybe she won’t remember me. Maybe her tastes have changed, and now she’s not attracted to incredibly sexy men who wear dress shirts.
I walked in with my load of shirts. She looked up from her magazine. Our eyes met. A piece of spinach glinted seductively in her front teeth.
“Meestah Sauron!” she squealed. “You come back! It been forevah! Where you been?”
I told her, quite bluntly, that I’d been using the other dry cleaners. I thought perhaps I could turn her devotion to hate, and my blatant disregard for her feelings or her business would act like a slap in the face and she would treat me like a pariah. That’s how it works on Dallas, anyway.
She beamed. “And now they close down! You bring shuts back to me! All good now! So good to see you again! I make sure you shuts velly clean! So glad you come back!”
I’m trying to get my boss to make our office business casual, so I don’t have to wear dress shirts any more.
