Back when I was working with a private doctor in Aberdeen, I used to drop off my wash on the way to work at a laundromat near the office. For $5 a load, it was washed, dried, and folded. All I had to do was take it home and put it away. (This was back when washers were $3 a load.)
The day before we left for vacation, I dropped off a “mixed load” – some whites, and a handful of colours – to empty the hamper before we headed out of town.
When I stopped by to collect my clothes, the clerk told me “we have a problem”. On top of my basket was a pair of blue jeans, which I did not (still don’t) wear. A bunch of men’s T-shirts were folded on top, and when I unfolded them, they had pictures and words The Squire would never have worn. There might have been a few things that actually belonged to us, but the vast majority of the items were not ours.
They had hired a new person, and she had dumped out a half-dozen laundry baskets, sorted the clothes by colour and then tried to remember what things went where.
It was impossible to pile the clothes on the table and let us all grab our own items. The first customer to come in that afternoon had been a trucker from out-of-town; he had grabbed his plastic garbage bag, plunked down his hard-earned cash, and driven off into the sunset.
That poor man is probably still trying to explain to his wife how my red bra got mixed in with his clothes.
And thanks to Jim Unger for reminding me.
Tags: clothing, embarassing situations, laundry, missing items
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