20% Discount

The captain and crew of the Mazurka have been pretty busy these days. Life on a boat is not all recreation – there are jobs to attend, money to earn. So lately, things around the boat have not been so ship-shape. Groceries haven’t been bought, floors haven’t been swept, and the laundry – the laundry has been collecting under stairways for weeks.

In his bachelor days, Mark used to take his laundry to the River City cleaners. When I came on board, I thought $75 for two weeks of laundry was too expensive. Give me a roll of quarters and a few hours and I’ll do it for ten bucks. We also have no shame about doing our laundry at our parents’ and siblings’ houses.

On a recent deceptively-free afternoon, I tore off the quilt and comforters, stuffed them into a bag, and proclaimed the laundry would be done. That was a week ago. Since then we have been slumbering under a sleeping bag, the laundry spilling around us. Mark had suggested taking the laundry in to the cleaners, but I refused, saying it cost too much.

By last Saturday morning, there was nothing left to wear. Mark piled everything we had into two huge bags and found a laundry just across Lake Shore Drive. The guy was amazed we lived on a boat, and promised to have it done by Tuesday. He didn’t speak great English, and some things were lost in translation…but he said not to worry, he would take care of everything.

The laundry was a day late. “I’ve never seen so much,” the guy told Mark. “I’m still working on it.”

“What does he have to work on?” I asked Mark. “Just throw it in the washer and dryer and fold it.”

Tonight when I got home, Mark was waiting for me. “Is the laundry here?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “You’ve never seen such clean clothes.” “How much was it?” I asked. “Well,” my husband said, “we’re not taking any vacations for a while.”

I started guessing. “More than $100? More than $200?”

The grand total – at a 20% discount – $380.

What did we get for our $380? An amount which made Mark’s hand shake while he wrote the check, and compelled me to call the launderer and complain that this was dishonest work that we never asked for? What did we get?

Ever single item in those two bags was dry cleaned and ironed, including oven mitts, ball caps, and t-shirts. The launderer worked tirelessly to get oil stains out of Mark’s work clothes and sweat stains out of my running sweatshirt. The sheets were ironed and packed neatly into plastic bags. My underwear was safety pinned to hangers in perfect descending order. This man took more pride in cleaning our laundry than I have for cleaning the entire boat. He even included eleven pages of notes detailing his week’s work.

Our one and only time at Lakefront Cleaners resulted in the cleanest, crispest clothes we have ever had on board.

“Everybody always wants dry cleaning,” the launderer told me on the phone, apologizing (but not offering any money back – after all, he had the check in hand). “Next time I will know what you want.”

There won’t be a next time for Lakefront Cleaners. We’re going back to rolls of quarters and waiting for 25 cent washers. It’s worth three hours of my time.