Adventures in Affluence: Dry Cleaning
How a nice gesture unsurfaced my latent conflict
I just made the last dry cleaning run of 2023. It was quite a haul to carry—so much weight pulled on the wire hangers that I felt pain in my wrist. In the other hand, I clutched a gift from the owner of the business.
As I walked into the house, Stacey thanked me for picking up the clothes and said, “What else do you have there?”
“Oh, this is the bottle of champagne the dry cleaner gave us as a holiday present.”
“That is so nice!” She cheered.
“It’s not nice,” I replied. “The guy’s obviously screwing us over.”
Having dealt with my chronic grumpiness for 19 years, my wife shook her head and looked at me with her “for a relatively nice guy, you can be such an a-hole” expression. I’ve seen it before.
“Why are you like this?” she said. “It’s a nice gesture.”
Of course, I regretted my words immediately. All I meant was that whenever someone buys you champagne, they are either trying to have sex with you, or they’ve already made love to your wallet, whether or not you actually noticed. In the case of Dry Cleaner Guy, I’m almost certain it was the latter, and thus was I holding 750 milliliters of Mumm Napa Brut Prestige NV.
“whenever someone buys you champagne, they are either trying to have sex with you, or they’ve already made love to your wallet”
Stacey was right. The sparkly wine was a sincere and unnecessary token of gratitude. But, in a weird way, his holiday kindness triggered me, making me wonder, how did I get to a place where my annual dry cleaning bill merits a bottle of medium-low-end bubbles?
Growing up, there was no dry cleaning in the Ollinger house. My father, a nuclear engineer, wore a jacket and tie to work—a post-Vietnam, PermaPress office casual vibe. My mother was the homemaker, which meant that in addition to her day job at the church, she cooked dinner for eight people, prepped my dad’s work outfit (I know, I know—the Patriarchy!), and washed the kids’ clothes. At some point during my freshman year, Mom—to her credit—resigned this last duty, leaving me with the choice of whether or not I wanted to iron my school uniform. Outsourcing this task was never discussed.
I didn’t have to do it, as plenty of my classmates walked the halls of St. Pius X Catholic High School in wrinkly button-downs. But I was vain and chose to press my shirts, most of which were a 50/50 poly/cotton blend, so it wasn’t terribly difficult.
I went to college with a distinctly more affluent crowd, but most kids attended class in tees or golf shirts. However, there was one guy in particular who stood out. Along with his creased Duckhead khakis and shiny Weejuns, this 6’4”, hair-gelled athlete wore heavily starched, 100% cotton, pinpoint Brooks Brothers dress shirts that required professional care. Every single day.
I remember seeing him transport his weekly dry cleaning bounty—a cape of cellophane billowing over his shoulder—as he strode from his red BMW to the dorm, like the bad guy from every 80s teen movie. To his credit, he was unapologetically well put together even if, at 19, he dressed like the 56-year-old lawyer he would someday become.
It eventually occurred to me that he was spending more to clean his clothes than I earned every month in my work-study job. I wasn’t jealous so much as curious—a wide-eyed witness to the habits of the wealthy. “So that’s something you can spend money on. Who knew?”
In my first year out of college, I earned a $25,000 salary at an office job that required literal white collars, so I bought the best shirts TJ Maxx had to offer and splurged $.89 per day to get them cleaned. That was a huge luxury. But as with so many other things, as you get older and make more money, luxuries eventually become thoughtless needs. And this one has expanded to the point where, today, we’re laundering things like cashmere throw blankets and linen napkins—items I never considered owning, let alone paying to clean.
We arrived at this unconscious habit accidentally. I don’t recall even checking my dry cleaning receipts in the past decade, and that 89 cents per shirt is now probably $4. Maybe more. I have no idea because I never gave it any thought … until dude hit me with the bottle of bubbly and uncovered my latent dry-cleaning trauma, which I projected onto him.
Was it guilt or shame? Do I feel unworthy? Have I lost touch with who I used to be or am I worried that my parents would consider me wasteful? Am I now the villain from the 80s movie, albeit balder and heavier?
I don’t know, but I just checked my 2023 American Express account. This year’s dry cleaning expenditures totaled $1,773.86.
Damn. That’s a lot. Next year, I expect Dom Perignon.
THE END (but keep reading)
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Thought you were talking about will owen, but he drove a camaro as i recall. Happy new year!