“The James Bond of Laundry”

“So, anybody leaves anything here, you can just take it? You have a license to steal? You are like the James Bond of laundry?”
The above is a quote from one of the very first episodes of Seinfeld. Don’t worry – this isn’t another Seinfeld-centric post like the one about Michael Richards. Rather, it’s a laundry-centric post, (dry cleaners to be specific, but they also do wash and fold laundry, so I figure it’s all the same).

The story begins last Monday, when I dropped off some clothes at the dry cleaners (Flair Cleaners, on Montana and Lincoln) – a suit, some slacks, a bunch of dress shirts. You might ask why I have so much dry cleaning given that I’m a student in Los Angeles. Sometimes I wonder the same damn thing when I’m sitting in a company presentation or at a networking event. But so is the life on an MBA student. I’ve signed up for it, first quarter tuition is paid, and most importantly, I quit my job. So I don’t really have much of a choice.

Fast forward past the Thanksgiving holiday to Saturday. Knowing I have a couple “dress for success” type events in the coming week, I make a quick run to Flair to pick up said dry cleaning. I give the cashier my 3 tickets (why can cleaners never seem to consolidate a large order on a single ticket?), and he goes off to the “conveyor belt” to retrieve my clothes. He comes back shortly with my shirts, but no slacks or suit. “I also dropped off a suit and some slacks,” I say. He looks at the ticket once again, and goes back to the conveyor belt. A few minutes pass. My first “Jesus F*cking Christ” comes in a soft whisper to myself. A few more minutes pass. “What’s going on?” I ask. “The suit isn’t where it’s supposed to be,” is the reply. No f*cking kidding. It’s been 5 minutes. The suit is SUPPOSED to be hanging from the hooks in the backseat of my car by now. This time the “Jesus F*cking Christ” is loud enough for another customer to turn, look at me, and roll my eyes in a Mel Gibson kinda way. The guy then asks if I wanna wait while they look for it. I assume this is a 10-20 minute process at worst, so I decide to wait it out. After ten minutes, I temporarily give up and head to Vons to pick up some alcohol. For later that night, I promise. I even tried to play the karma game, buying a chocolate bar from a girl scout for the outrageous price of $2.50. Return to the cleaners. Nada. I wait for a few more minutes, when some other guy tells me the first guy is looking at some video to figure out where they put my suit. Now, I’m no IT expert – but wouldn’t it be easier to track the location of clothes with some sort of computer system rather than a soon-to-be-out-of-our-vocabulary “VHS system”? Increasingly frustrated and impatient and due at my sister’s in an hour to hang with the family, I tell the guy to call me when they find my suit and storm off.

Sunday, 11:30 a.m.: Having not heard yet from the brainiacs at Flair yet, I give them a call to check in. A woman answers, I explain the situation quickly, and she puts me on hold to go look for the suit. She comes back a minute later saying “The ticket has a location on it, but the suit isn’t there.” Really? You think? She tells me she’ll start looking for it. This infuriates me. “So does this mean if I didn’t call you guys right now to check on my suit, that no one would ever start looking for it?” She explains that she just got in, and the guys from Saturday didn’t leave a note. Thanks a lot. She tells me she’ll look for it and call me when she found it. Needless to say, my confidence is waning.

Monday, 8 a.m.: Having (unsurprisingly) not heard from the cleaners on Sunday, I call them again. Different woman, same answer. My clothes have not been found. “Is anyone currently looking for them?” “No.” “So, if I hadn’t called right now, you guys would have just not looked for it and not called me?” “I just got in, and no one told me about this.” “I need to speak to a manager, because obviously unless I keep calling you guys, no one is going to ever look for my suit.” “The manager will be in in an hour.” “Thanks.” (click)

Monday, 9:50 a.m.: I call ONCE AGAIN. The same woman tells me that she has not been able to find my clothes. I demand to speak to the manager who, believe it or not, is actually in. I feel like progress is being made! I again ask why the hell they seem to stop looking for my clothes repeatedly until I call them. Now, I am told that my clothes likely got mixed up with those of another customer. They have apparently tried to contact this (likely fictional) customer twice but have not heard back. On top of this, the prick basically tells me to wait for them to call me, and for me to stop calling so often. I guess he doesn’t realize why I might view missing clothes as a bit of a problem. He remains “confident” that this “customer” has my clothes and that they will be recovered – if not, I will be compensated. For whatever reason, I’m not as confident as the manager that my clothes will ever be seen again. Nor am I confident that they will reimburse me for the amount that I paid for the clothes. Am I really supposed to keep my receipt for a 3-year old suit? (Sidenote: did the guy/girl who supposedly has my suit just intend to keep it? Like, “Sweet! Free suit!” Good luck fitting into a 36-regular.)

Tuesday, 5 p.m.: The time is now. I haven’t heard from the cleaners since I last called them yesterday morning. I don’t even have the energy to bitch on a daily basis anymore, so I’m gonna take today off, save up the rage, and have fun with it tomorrow morning. Oh, did I mention that this is currently my only suit, since I seem to have misplaced the pants to my other suit? Please save the obvious “missing pants” jokes. They’re not at my boyfriend’s place, or in a strip club somewhere in Vegas. Maybe they’re at your mom’s house.