Untoward Effects of the Economic Downturn

Sitting here listening to Obama talk about the economy, I am thinking about something that recently happened to us.  Jeff has many fabulous shirts that require dry cleaning.  Let me restate, Jeff has many fabulous shirts that I beg him to dry clean so that neither he or I will spend seventy-eleven hours ironing.  Being the prudent budgeters that we are, we decided that instead of trimming our beer budget, we would find a less expensive dry cleaner.

I thought of the perfect, unassuming place that has been right on the corner for YEARS.  The name of the business made me think that this is a family-run type of place.  So going with them gives me a warm-fuzzy feeling and maybe saves us a few bucks a month all at the same time.  Why not, right?  The shirts have been piling up for a while so when Jeff took them in, he made the very fortunate decision to only take seventeen of them.  The drop seemed innocuous enough, the shirts would be ready in 24 hours.

The next day my poor, shirtless husband texted to inform me that his shirts had been seized.  Being that I was in the middle of a class, I had to ponder the meaning of the word “seized”.  Were they not ready on time?  Did they get sent somewhere else?  Did someone else take them home by mistake?  Turns out that seized meant seized.  The building was locked and a notice was on the door, along with the card of a police officer who had no idea about when the precious shirts could be returned to us.  Outstanding.

Fortunately, about a week later, the shirts were returned, safe and sound and clean.  Wrapped, as all shirts should be, in plastic where cleaning chemicals can be trapped to then leach into the cellular level of the cotton fibers.  The business was happily open again, the only explanation  for the incident being that the cops who served the eviction notice were “very bad people”.  Well, dude, don’t pay your rent and shit happens.  The seizure of the shirts, though, has left me feeling disturbed and insecure in a way.

Evidence of this economy is visible everywhere, especially here in Michigan.  Empty houses in our neighborhood, boats and RVs for sale along the road, former Chrysler employees looking for work as nursing assistants…   But getting your shirts seized because your dry cleaner can’t pay the rent is almost like a violation that makes me realize that, despite both of our jobs and our feelings of confidence about the future of our employment, this recession will not leave us alone any time soon.

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