My Greatest Fear #23: Losing My Dry Cleaning Ticket

I took some pants to the dry cleaners last Wednesday, and I was given a pink pickup ticket for Friday evening. I’m sure you’ve done this before.

If you’re like me, you guard that ticket with your life.

I’ve played through the scenario in which I show up to pick up my dry cleaning without the ticket, and it looks something like this:

Me: Hi, I’m here to pick up my pants.

Dry Cleaning Lady (looks up from her mass-market copy of Twilight: Adapted from the Motion Picture Twilight): Sure, can I have your ticket?

Me (fidgeting): Um, that’s the thing…I lost the ticket.

DCL: You lost the ticket.

Me: Yes. I’m so sorry. Can I just show you my ID?

DCL (rolls her eyes): Your ID is useless here. The only way we can know that they’re your pants is if you have your ticket.

Me: Do you have other “Stegmaiers” in your database?

DCL: I can’t tell you that without your ticket.

Me (starting to sweat profusely): What if I describe the pants to you in perfect detail before you show them to me? That way you’d know that they’re mine.

DCL: How do I know this isn’t a setup? You could have the real Stegmaier bound and gagged in your car.

Me: What if I try them on? You’ll know they’re mine if they fit me. Like Cinderella.

DCL: You could have had plastic surgery to match the real Stegmaier’s waistline and leg length.

Me (starting to doubt if I’m the real Jamey Stegmaier): I will pay you a thousand dollars for my pants.

DCL: No.

Me: I will lay you across this oddly sticky counter and make sweet, sweet love to you until the sun rises tomorrow in exchange for pants.

DCL (sizes me up skeptically): Not going to happen.

Me (producing a spot-on Photoshopped duplication of the ticket from my pocket): Oh! Silly me! What was I thinking? Here’s the ticket!

DCL (runs the ticket through a hologram scanner and one of those machines that blows puffs of air on you at the airport): This is a fake.

Me: I give up. Have a good day.

I’m sure it’s something like that. I just don’t want to chance it.

12 thoughts on “My Greatest Fear #23: Losing My Dry Cleaning Ticket”

  1. Silly Jamey. Being permitted to make sweet, sweet love to the dry-cleaning clerk requires a ticket, too. It’s different from the one required for picking up clothes, though, if memory serves.

    Reply
  2. I believe the hierarchy of power in this world and others is something like this:

    God
    Major heads of state
    Dry Cleaning Lady in a ticketless situation
    Financial powerhouses
    Legislative bodies
    Rolling Stone magazine
    State governments
    Wikipedia
    Bill Belichick

    (or something like that). Needless to say, you don’t mess with the DCL.

    Reply
  3. Well, as one who has lost her ticket — I know they made me a sign a book promising to give them my first born — oops that would be Jamey. yikes – Jamey you already belong to the DRL.

    Actually one day I had forgotten my slip – could not find it – but I just knew I had clothes to pick up. I went in and pleaded for my clothes which the went to look for. Meanwhile I was writing my check(yep they only take cash or checks) and discovered I had already written a check !! HA HA HA – I had already picked up my clothes and had forgotten that I did. I felt silly, forgetful and old.

    Reply
    • Ha ha ha…wow, I’m glad you shared this news on the blog! I guess this means that someday I’ll have to go work at a dry cleaning shop.

      Reply
  4. I’m surprised the story didn’t end with you running out of the store not wearing any pants or in a naked panic state.

    And I totally agree with the sticky counter statement. Why is the counter sticky in every dry cleaning place? Aren’t they suppose to be dry and clean?

    Reply

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