Does that say $7.00?

I'm a lawyer. Among other things that means that I can't wear Hanes T-shirts and beat up, old Converses to work with jeans or shorts or jean shorts [I don't own any jean shorts, otherwise known as "jorts," I swear].

[Side note: A popular dig against University of Florida fans and students is that we wear jorts. I never wore jorts when I was at UF. None of my friends wore jorts. It seems that this is just a case of a few outcasts ruining things for the majority. Then again, what's so wrong with jean shorts? I'll leave that for another time]
Needless to say, at work I dress in dress pants and dress shirts. My firm is business casual, so I don't need to wear ties or a suit. Sometimes, on extremely hot days, I can even get away with khakis and a polo shirt. Usually I save that for Thursdays or Fridays. Only if I'm going to court or a client meeting will I wear a suit and tie. Coincidentally, I'm never in court or a client meeting so pants and a shirt is de rigueur.

If you work in an office, like I do, and have man parts, then you'll probably be at the cleaners having your shirts laundered weekly. Similar to dry cleaning expenses for women, but to a lesser extent, shirt laundering can get fairly expensive. There is an on-going debate amongst my friends and colleagues as to how often you should wash your shirts. Some follow strict, one and done protocol. Others, like myself, try to extend the life of the shirt and sneak in an extra wear or two. The non-iron shirts I have still look crisp and fresh from the cleaners after 2 wears, so why not? As long as the shirt is unstained and I'm wearing a clean undershirt, I don't see the problem. Some people might view this as dirty and unhygienic, but, I'd bet, those are the same people who think peeing in the shower is gross and harmful as well. I fall on the other side. Peeing in the shower is our God-given right. It all goes to the same place. It all gets filtered and purified. It's just salt and water and urea. In fact, so I've heard, from other people, who are not me, and I've seen, involuntarily, and not on purpose, that some people also enjoy, from what I hear, getting peed on. So what's the big deal with wearing a dress shirt 3 or 6 times before having it laundered? [6 may be pushing the limits of cleanliness].

Either way, back in Hell's Kitchen, where you might suspect that services like drop-off laundry, dry-cleaning, and locksmithing, would be cheaper than say identical services in the West Village or Tribeca, it actually cost a fair amount of money to have my shirts cleaned. $1.75 per shirt. Per shirt! $1.75! I could get roughly 1/11th of a lap dance for $1.75. Or almost an entire can of Pabst Blue Ribbon at any bar that sells PBR cans for $2 [I had a specific bar in mind, but was just informed that at that bar PBR cans are now $3.25, which is highway robbery if you ask me]. If I only wore a shirt once before cleaning it, that would cost $8.75 a week. Let's not even discuss dry-cleaning pants as well. So to keep costs down, I chose to wear shirts twice between cleanings.

Imagine my incredulity then when I walked downstairs from my new apartment this morning, literally walked next door into the dry cleaners holding 4 shirts, one with an overly-stained collar due to my multiple wearings, dropped the four shirts on the counter and said, "4 shirts" when I was asked how many. The nice, old man, began writing up the ticket.

"What's your name?"

"Jared."

He began spelling it slowly. Most people think my name is "Jerry." No one sees the "D" coming, it's very elusive. They block the sound of the "D" from their ears. People I've known for years think my name is Jerry. My barber, my old dry cleaner, etc. I don't bother correcting them because I just don't care enough. This time, however, I decided to get off on the right foot in my new neighborhood, especially when I looked down and saw the letters, "J-A-R-D" across the paper. I couldn't allow that to happen.

"It's E-D."

He wrote this as "J-A-R-D-E."

"No, it's E-D. The E is before the D."

"Oh, I was writing too fast."

"That's okay.

"Is Thursday good?"

"Thursday is great."

He handed the ticket/receipt to me and for the first time I noticed the cost. It looked like a 7 followed by a decimal point, followed by two zeros. $7.00. Impossible! No way! What would've cost $7.00 in Hell's Kitchen could in no-way-shape-or-form cost $7.00 in Podunk Sunnyside. I refused to believe it. I was tempted to turn around, snatch my shirts back, and throw them in the trash just to prove a point, but I didn't do that. Instead, I looked closer, I saw the curve, the arched font, the hand-shortened dash lining the bottom blending in with the ticket's pre-printed lines. It was a 2. A glorious 2. $2.00 for 4 shirts!

One and done, here I come! [Peeing in the shower will not be affected by this decision].

Jared

[Note: I'm an idiot, it actually was $7.00. Maybe I hate Sunnyside.]