1. People who spend fifteen minutes on their cellphones while you’re trying to wait on them. Let me let you in on a little inside information: Drycleaners HATE cellphones. The scenario is always like this: The customer walks in with an armload of clothes, and sets them on the counter. You walk up, smiling in a friendly yet professional manner, and they give you a borderline hostile look, then whip out their cellphone and proceed to have a completely spurious conversation with their friend/coworker/drug dealer (I’m not kidding about the last. We’ve had customers make blatant drug deals while we list in their clothes), ignoring you the entire time. Usually, they turn their back to you and walk away. In the meantime, you’re standing there with a fifth-wheel expression, while several other customers walk in with their stuff. If you try to wait on the customers who are actually interested in conducting business, the cellphone holder gestures to you, as if to indicate they’ll be done right now, as soon as they finish this vital call. At that point I usually ignore them and wait on the people behind them. Immediate money (the clerk in front of them) has more relevance than future money (the guy on the other end of the phone). If the call is that important, make it before you enter the building. If it’s not that important, it can wait until after the transaction. It’s that simple.
2. People who claim that we put spots in their clothes. Our business is to clean clothes, not to make them dirtier. We don’t prance around with grape juice in one hand and motor oil in the other, flinging the items gaily about. It really was that bad when you brought it in, and don’t claim we made it worse. If something does happen to your garment that we caused, we will own up to it and make amends. Also, we can’t change the color of clothes. Don’t even think about claiming that we turned your white suit cream. Either it was sun-damaged when it was brought in, or it was cream to begin with.
3. People who become offended when you suggest what created the tears and/or stains in their garments. Folks, EVERYONE has moths in their house at one time or another. Women have menstrual cycles, which inevitably create spots. Neither is anything to be ashamed of, and we see both frequently. On the other hand, don’t casually mention a rather serious affliction. One time a lady brought in a garment and set it on the table. I started rifling through it and asked what the problem was. She said, “Well, my daughter had ringworm...” and I immediately dropped it like a hot potato, because ringworm is highly contagious and easily spread through clothes. She became offended at this, and replied, “It’s not like it’s AIDS or something.” I would have preferred that it had been AIDS, because at least that isn’t transmitted through casual contact!
4. People who become highly offended and/or give you a hard time if you can’t remember their name. I see at least fifty people every day, and not the same people. I also have a difficult time remembering names in the first place. I once had a class with only 14 people in it including the teacher, and by the end of the year could remember only one person’s name. It’s nothing personal, and I hate it when people act like it is. On the off chance that I do remember a name, likely it’s someone who’s been coming in regularly for years. I say regularly, because someone who has showed up once every six months for the past thirty years does not count. I also don’t remember suit customers--that is the job of the tailor. Just because you remember my name does not mean that I should remember yours. There are maybe six counter people you have to deal with, while I have to deal with potentially hundreds of customers.
5. People who come in two minutes before we close and have nine million items to drop off. I want to hurt these people.
6. People who call to insist we stay open after hours, because “they just want to pick up one item”. Grampa once waited TWO HOURS after closing for some guy, who never showed up and never bothered calling to tell him that he wasn’t coming. He called the next day to say, never mind, I found something else to wear. Arrrrghh....
7. People who apparently have nothing resembling a social life, and like to use their time with us to chat about their personal problems. These same people are usually the ones who show up two minutes before closing. They also think they have special privileges since they’re “in with the management” and try to finagle their way into the back and hang out while we mark in clothes.
8. People who have at least six large orders and can’t remember what’s in them, so they ask us to bring them out “one at a time” so they can see them and decide whether or not to pick them up. Said people are usually tall, athletic young men. I weigh approximately 100 lbs, and I just can’t carry out several orders weighing forty lbs each in succession. All of the other clerks are female, too, and we just don’t have the physical ability to lift such ungodly heavy objects. The male owners are both pushing 80, and they can’t lift them as well. Please don’t ask us to do that; it’s beyond our ability. Even if we could, or the orders are small, it’s just plain annoying to take them out one at a time so the customer can hem and haw and finally pick the one cheapest order. We give out receipts for a reason, folks...we clearly list the category, number, color, and finally price of all the items, both individually and in total. There is simply no reason to ask us to go to all that trouble.
9. People who ask us to split orders, usually for financial reasons. We don’t do that. It’s confusing, both for us and for the computers. No amount of wheedling will make us do otherwise.
10. People who bitch about the prices. Drycleaning is expensive, and we use high-quality chemicals and solvent that is gentle on clothes. Our stuff is better than most drycleaners. We also have to pay employees and overhead (utilities etc.), so please keep that in mind. Also, don’t bitch to the clerks. We can’t control the prices...we’re lowly peons, and complaining to us makes little difference. If you have an issue, take it up with management. And don’t try to “persuade” us to make the price just a leetle lower, just this once. The price is the price is the price. That’s how much a pair of pants costs, ma’am. Don’t try to haggle it down. You don’t like it, go someplace else.
11. People who bring in unruly children. Drycleaning establishments are no place to bring kids. It’s a very dangerous environment. We have pins littering the floor, deadly poison chemicals, big hot metal pressers, glass mirrors and tables for them to crash into, all sorts of furniture with sharp corners for them to gouge an eye on, an inward-swinging door for them to break their teeth on, and many other delights. If you can’t leave the kids supervised in the car, watch them like a hawk. I once politely asked a lady to supervise her rambunctious two-year old daughter, and she snapped back at me, “She knows enough to mind me!” This same kid later walked up to the door and nearly got smacked in the face, when someone with clothes in their arms didn’t see her when coming in. I’m sorry, but a two-year old doesn’t respond to verbal commands only. You have to physically control them. Another kid wandered off and was found chewing safety pins. I don’t care how smart you think your darling child is. Supervise them.
12. The Picky Bird Woman. This is a specific pet peeve, inspired by a decidedly eccentric lady who is very, very particular about how her clothes are handled. The Picky Bird Woman (or PBW for short), so called because she vaguely resembles a wren, is a tall, extremely skinny lady sporting a severe bun, with a concern for her clothing that borders on paranoia. She brings in a lot of silk items, occasionally with small grease stains, and picks and fusses over them to a startling degree. She can be very arguementative regarding the care of her clothing, and wants them handled in a certain way, hung at a certain angle, use this kind of hanger but not that kind, etc etc etc. At one point she asked Mom why her clothes had wrinkles on them after she wore them. Mom said it’s just normal wrinkles from sitting down. Perfectly reasonable. The PBW responded, “Are you sure it’s not the heat from my body?”, rubbing her hands all over herself to make her point. Whenever Mom pointed out the error of such a theory, the PBW would repeat that phrase. It was highly creepy and disturbing. Surprisingly, she actually seems to like me, and gives me less of a hard time than anyone else. I still don’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
13. People who accuse us of racism and/or prejudice. We are situated in an area with a high African-American population, and at least half of our customers are black. We’ve been at the same place for over 50 years, and have been highly supportive of the local community. Many community leaders, including heads of churches and the past two mayors, frequent our business. We also have two black ladies, a Korean lady, and three ladies who hail directly from Poland in our hire. We’re very culturally diverse. To say that we’re racist is absurd, yet some people have accused us of discrimination when we place the same restrictions on them that we would give any other customer (refusing to let them split orders, for example). I’ve been the target of reverse racism several times, and one guy even physically threatened Grampa.
14. Skeezy old men who try to hit on me. This has been happening since I was fifteen, with the hopeful object being typically over forty. Ewww....
15. People who come in obviously drunk or stoned. Actually, this is more amusing than anything. My personal favorite was the highly unkempt gentleman who came in at nine on a Saturday morning and announced “I fell in the lake” the second he walked in the door. Hee...
16. People who come in reeking of pot, or sporting noxious cigars that cloud the atmosphere. We’re a drycleaners, and cigar fumes sort of defeat the point of cleaning clothes. Can you say “smoke damage?” Plus it’s just disgusting to have to endure the smell. Ditto for rancid perfume.
17. People who don’t pick up their damned clothing for months and months and months. We once had a lady ask if her wedding dress was still here. We asked when it was dropped off, and she replied, “About twenty years ago.” Holy flying squirrels! I’m sorry, but that is just unreasonable. That puppy was gone, not to mention who the hell would forget to pick up an important item like a wedding dress? We have only a certain amount of space in the building, and if we kept ever article of clothing we’ve ever received, we’d have clothes coming out the windows. After a certain period of time, we are legally entitled to dispose of any clothing in the building in any matter that we see fit. However, we personally (I can’t speak for other drycleaners) don’t sell customer’s clothes, or make profit off of them; we end up giving them away to charities. Don’t ask if you can buy old clothes. If you want clothes, go to a clothing store; if you want cheap clothes, go to Goodwill.
18. People who come in for a fitting, and get unusually testy when they’re told that the seamstresses are not there. Our seamstresses are people, too. One of them has a young daughter that she needs to pick up from school and various activities (mainly dance class), and they both sometimes have to go out to pick up sewing supplies. They have very erratic schedules. If you want a fitting, call ahead the morning you plan on coming in to check that a seamstress will be there at a time convenient to you.
19. People who come in with clothing they ruined from trying to clean/repair by themselves. Aside from sewing on a button, which even a drunken monkey could do, 99.9% of the time you will be ill-equipped for basic maintenance. Do NOT attempt to wash items that are labelled Dry Clean Only, and do not alter garments on your own. Chances are you will ruin your garment. And I don’t care what Hints From Heloise tells you about home remedies for stains: they don’t work. Baking soda removes nothing. We have seen every “miracle” stain remover you can imagine, and they all are useless. You will end up setting the stain in, plus paying us to do futile rescue efforts on your silk blouse after you foolishly believed that hairspray will remove peanut butter (yes, HAIRSPRAY. Sigh...), and then end up inevitably pissed for not only flushing an expensive garment down the drain, but shelling out money after the casualty. Here’s a tip for free: Water, even your fancy imported “purified” water, has minerals in it, such as iron and--what’s that ingredient in blood that rusts faster than anything?--copper. Those minerals will set stains in, and water marks are one of the toughest spots on earth to remove.
Also, home drycleaning kits do not work. This is probably the biggest fallacy of all. Let me explain. So-called “dry” cleaning is so named because the process does not contain water. It does, however, contain chemicals specifically designed to remove dirt and stains, including something called “digest”, named because it literally eats food and oils. Home drycleaning kits are designed so that you put your clothes in the dryer, add the contents of the kit, and tumble them together. Basically what happens, is the dirt is not removed, but redistributed, and some sort of perfume agent is added to make the clothes smell nice when the process is over. Nothing is actually cleaned, which is a problem if you have really funky stains. I have also seen garments brought in with massive bleach-type stains after the customer went through the home drycleaning system, and the clothes bled everywhere. In such cases, the home drycleaning kits were held solely responsible. One of these days, those home drycleaning companies are going to have lawsuits filed against them for false advertising.
20. Really, really gross people. This isn’t so much a complaint against dry cleaning customers, so much as people in general, but dry cleaners tend to see the brunt of people’s dirtier habits, since our business is after all to clean up after other people’s messes. It’s so fulfilling, really it is.
I’m not just talking about little minor accidents...some cat pee here, some baby vomit there (although I would rather deal with the former than the latter). I’m talking about clothing so dirty it could contain colonies of lice. Articles in which it is doubtful that its owner has ever heard of the concept of water, whether of running or still variety. Pants with dried, cracked feces still clinging stubbornly to the inner lining. I’ve dealt with every single bodily output you could care to name, often still fresh and moist. I’ve scooped handfuls of dirt out of pockets and hung blouses literally dripping with sweat. I’ve picked off moth eggs and deceased ballbugs by the dozens. And I’ve had to deal with the owners of said garments, just as dirty and malodorous and repulsive as the garments they happily fob off onto us, later complaining that the collars isn’t quite clean enough, so they want it redone. Sigh. There are times when I think maybe mandatory sterilization based on IQ isn’t such a bad idea after all.
21. People who “forget” that they have rips and tears in their clothes. Usually these are the same people who, when they pick up their order, go through their garments with a fine-tooth comb and accuse us of creating tears that weren’t there when they brought it in. Of course, the irony is that they KNEW the tears were there, but they want to get a bit of money out of us, so they don’t tell us about the damage when they bring it in, then immediately point it out when picking up their order. Uh-huh. Sure you didn’t see that when it was brought it. I’ll believe that. The same thing happens with spots, missing buttons, or any other kind of damage. They think they’re being so sneaky, getting away with free repairs, because surely The Customer Is Always Right, and we could never accuse them of lying.
22. People who don’t want to pick up their clothing. This isn’t the same thing as forgetting...these people KNOW that their clothing is here, and they usually remember exactly what is in the order, and what it costs. They’re under the impression that it’s cheaper just to buy a new garment than replace the old one, so they tell us, “Oh, I don’t want it. You can keep it.” This last is usually stated with an air of generosity--oh, they’re so nice, they’re just going to give us their clothes. Umm, folks? We don’t WANT your clothes! We’re not a Goodwill! Our reason for existing is for people to give us their clothes to clean, then pick them up so we can get MONEY for them. Every time a customer “forgets” or refuses to take their clothes, it’s money down the drain for us. This is especially the case with people who have something cleaned, then when they see it isn’t quite clean enough, tell us to “just throw it away.” Nuh-uh. Doesn’t work that way. We did the work, we get paid for it. We wasted time and resources to clean that garment, and we would like to be reimbursed. This isn’t a charity, people--it’s a business. We dread the end-of-the-year clearance, when we weed through old orders, culling through what to give to charity, lamenting the vast amounts of money wasted in the cleaning. Every year we lose THOUSANDS of dollars because some ignorant NITWIT thinks it’s better to just “leave them here” rather than take responsibility for their own damned property! I’ve even had people with the balls to tell me that if their clothes aren’t spotless on the due date, they don’t intend to pick them up (or, more likely, they’ll pick them up and refuse to pay for them).
23. The Dingbat. Another specific pet peeve brought on by a single customer, The Dingbat (also known as Dingbat M.) is a startlingly fussy, eccentric woman who must have some form of verbal diarrhea, because she never hesitates to let us in on the soap-operaish details of her personal life. A fellow clerk once informed me that Dingbat M. spent a solid fifteen minutes launching into a VERY detailed description of her intimate relations. She has revealed so many family feuds and bizarre hang-ups, we’re convinced she could make a living off of Jerry Springer. She’s also one of the argumentative customers, and is picky in the extreme. Convinced that she’s good friends with one of the seamstresses, she will nag and nag and nag until she has her own way (or at least thinks she does). She seems to think that we hold some sort of mystical power over clothes, and will request physically impossible alterations (such as letting out 10 inches from the waist on a skirt), because after all, if she can visualize the results inside her head, it can be done! To that sort of thing we usually reply, “Sorry, our magic wand’s in the shop today.” Dingbat M. is another coat hanger fetishist who insists on color-coordinating the hangers according to whatever the wee pixies inside her brain think is best, and will spend upwards of a half-hour happily sorting her clothes into some magical order known only to her. She also once found out that I’m a Xena fan (I had on a Gabrielle shirt at the time, so it wasn’t exactly rocket surgery), and spent an inordinate portion of time trying to get me to admit that “Kevin Sorbo’s SO hot, isn’t he?” (umm, no. See my arguement against Richard of the Anita Blake series), and is now convinced I’m a lesbian because I disagreed with her. Admittedly, she’s not the first, but I refused to reveal my taste in men to her...it’s none of her damned business, and if she wants to go spewing the details of her life to relative strangers, that’s her prerogative, but I sure as hell don’t intend on it.