Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Cleaners

Today I tried to take a couple suits to the dry cleaners. It's in a location that is difficult to reach, but it didn't used to be as bad when I lived near there and passed it a couple times a day. It's hard to explain to people who do not understand Michigan Left's. But I had to turn around to get into the cleaners, but you cannot access the cleaners from from the road I was on, and you cannot access the road I needed to be on to enter from the road I was on, so I had to turn onto another road, and then turn left onto the road I needed to be on, and finally right into the cleaners. Then to get back on track I had to turn right out of the cleaners, the opposite direction of what I needed to be going, turn right on the first road I was on, Michigan Left to turn around, turn right back onto the road I was first on, Michigan left again to turn the direction I needed to be going. In case any of that was unclear I documented the paths below. The yellowish color is the path to get to the cleaners, and purple path is what it took to get back to the correct direction.


To make matters worse, the cleaners has changed hands and as I walked in I saw a giant sign reading:

PRE-PAYMENT REQUIRED
CASH ONLY!

Perfect. I only carry debit, and while they suggested I use their convenient onsite ATM. Thanks but no thanks, I'm not about to pay a $2 fee when I only come to this cleaners since it's the cheapest in the area ($1.99 per piece). When I left the door was flung open by the 50 mph wind gusts, which I didn't notice until I got to my car, only to see the owner giving me a dirty look as he closed it, as if I intentionally left it open.

So I stopped at another cleaners on the way to work, which is much easier to access. It is, however, a bit more expensive ($2.99 per piece) and also requires pre-payment.

Call me crazy, but isn't it weird for dry cleaners to require prepayment?

6 comments:

Cherry said...

Prepayment? Isn't having your expensive suits security enough? And if you don't intend to wear them again why would you bother cleaning them to forfeit them?

I agree, that's weird.

Elle Woods said...

I wish I remembered from bar study about if prepayment matters for bailments in terms of liability.

Ookami Snow said...

Wow, Michigan-left turns have now become my lest favorite traffic flow idea. That makes no sense.

E. McPan said...

My cleaner's requires prepayment.

Elle Woods said...

Michigan lefts are handy for a lot of things, but sometimes they just make thing awful.

Nicole said...

The cleaner's in my hometown always required prepayment. It seemed like a solid business model--after all, the expensive suits you're dropping off might have value to you, but if you drop off a huge bill and say, skip the jurisdiction, that's a lot of time and effort for something that has comparatively little value to a dry cleaner. ([facetious]Plus, they probably need the money for their lawsuit fund.[/facetious]) Then, when I went off to law school, the one time I got something dry cleaned, they didn't require prepayment. Go figure.