Brotha!?

You ever get the feeling that people would rather not be agreeable? It's almost like all of us are keeping this running score and don't want to give up anything, lest we fall behind in the standings. It happens everyday in traffic. If I let that guy merge, I'll be one additional car length away from my destination. Heaven forbid I fall off the pace a whole three seconds. You scowl at me and I maintain my icy resolve. It's really rather comical, when you think about it. Why must we treat each other so bad? My gain does not necessarily spell your immediate loss or vice versa. In most cases we are not inversely connected.

You might come across some customer service employee that will have you believe that your very request is the singular thing that will push them over the edge. If this person has had a rough day and is down to counting the minutes until their 5pm quittin' time, that's one thing. But if it's 10:30am and the eye rolling and heavy sighing are already in full effect, you kind of have to question whether they are really there to serve any customers at all. Nevermind the fact that with no customers to serve, their position and likely their company would cease to exist. They are not deterred by such trifling details. If you're not cut out for such a job, then do yourself and all of the rest of us a favor and please find another.

Such was my experience on this fine Friday morning. Having been a bit "caught up" this week with work and various other running around, I neglected to put the dry cleaners into my plans. I had to attend a wedding today and needed to press a suit and shirt for the occasion. I was thinking that I could get this done near my house, but the suspect business hours of the cleaners on my street made this impossible this morning. I had to go into the office, so I jumped on the computer to Google a dry cleaner in the area near my office. I found one and promptly placed a call that was fielded by what seemed like the lowest man on the totem pole. When I asked if he could press a suit for me, and how long it would take, he first said that they couldn't do it because they had already turned the pressing machine off for the day. I thought it rather peculiar, so I, um...pressed (no pun intended) a bit until he said he'd go find out from the boss if it would be possible. When he returned, he said he could handle it and to come on by.

About an hour later, I was strolling through their doors with my suit and shirt in hand. Instead of the phone guy, I was greeted by what appeared to be the owner this time. He was a clean cut guy who sort of resembled Byron Allen, and his store was one of the most clean and orderly looking dry cleaners I had seen in some time.

"You were the one that called on the phone," he said, after hearing my answer to his obligatory 'how can I help you' salutation/inquiry. "We usually don't do this. We turn off the machines by a certain time each day and it is a really big deal for us to turn them back on...blah blah blah...," he continued. You remember when you were a kid and some grown-up playing gatekeeper to something you wanted to do was giving you the business about how grateful you ought to be that they were taking time out of their busy schedule to accomodate you and going on and on about the 10 million other things that they should be doing right now instead of wasting their time helping you out, when, in actuality, if they just went ahead and did it without the Shakespearean soliloquy they could've conserved vast amounts of your time and theirs, as well as taken major steps toward preventing an even speedier deterioration of the ozone layer by not emitting so much CO2 with their rambling? I was SO there at that moment, as I was thinking, "Surely in the last 60 minutes since you told your minion that it was indeed okay to grant my request you would've gotten over the need to get all 'Four Score and 7 years ago' on me, as I too am busy and would like to get back to my office to do the work that I came in to do...and oh by the way, I'm paying you, so it's not like you are being totally put out by this." I just nodded and let him finish as I hung my suit on the rack.

"So what time do you need this?" he asked, still a little winded from his diatribe.

"If I could get it at 2pm, that would be great," I said.

"Do you have to go out of town today? Do you really need it at 2pm, or could you take it at 3pm? Do you have somewhere to be?"

A little surprised at the questioning, I kept my cool and shared with him that I had to go to Livermore and that I would need to be gone by 3pm at the latest, starting to sense that there might be something else underlying here. He proceeded to write me a receipt and then said that I could pick it up between 2pm and 3pm. With all my might, I successfully fought back the awkward facial expression that surely would've taken over my countenance as I tried to fathom why it could possibly take more than 10 minutes to get this done with the big permanent press machines that are standard at most dry cleaning establishments in the free world. My shirt had those fresh out of the washing machine, balled up in a tote bag and stuffed in the back of the closet wrinkles, but if I had the time, I could've probably worked it all out in about 20 minutes on my own ironing board. What happened to "sure thing, sir" or "not a problem, we'll have it for you at 2pm"?

He started in again about how hard all of this was to do and threw in a few more, "we don't usually do" this-es so I gathered the receipt and started to backpedal like I really needed to be going now, but then thought of one last question.

"How much is this going to be?"

"Twenty!" he said.

"Do you take credit cards?" I asked, from a place of convenience as well as being so cash poor this month that I have been overdrawn since 2 days after the last pay day. Going to the ATM would only put me further into debt and incur an additional fee for dipping into my reserve account.

"I want cash for this!" he said in a tone of voice that suggested my "special" circumstance was causing him such a hardship that it called for a special cash only policy.

Now had me and my broke self even thought for a second that it would cost $20 to get my suit and shirt pressed I would've awakened 20 minutes earlier or even stayed up 20 minutes later the night before to attend to this. However, at this late hour, I wasn't really feeling like arguing, nor did I have time to seek out another alternative. I had precious little time and decided not make like Dr. Phil and not "sweat the small stuff".

When I was about to leave, he had one last question. "By the way, how did you find us?" At the time I was quick to reply that I had Google'd dry cleaners in Menlo Park near my job and his was closest, but in retrospect I'm not so sure that both his question and his tone weren't suggesting something else. More on that later.

I went back to work and methodically worked through the day's to-do list. I let the clock approach 2:20p before I got in my car to go get my suit, having already bit the bullet and gone to the teller on the way back to the office earlier.

"I'll be with you in just a moment," he said as he rang up an older lady that was paying with a credit card as I walked in.

He subsequently went to the back to get my suit and hung it from the rack as I handed him the crisp $20 bill, essentially financing this transaction anyway, credit card or not.

"Oh my, that shirt will look beautiful with that suit!" said another elderly lady that had walked in behind me.

"Thank you," I said, blushing a bit as I so often do when given a compliment, and reaching for the door to get on my way.

"Be careful when you drive after you've drank too much at the wedding," Byron called out as I left. "You don't want to be driving drunk."

Had I just been stereotyped? Had this black man been condescending, slightly unfriendly, and downright unethical because he does not expect to see anything but little old white women walk into his store in this rather exclusive area? Was his question about my discovering his store a view into the fact that he was alarmed that other black people like me might start to frequent his establishment and maybe change the demographic that perhaps he had become accustomed to and even preferred? Furthermore, was the drunk driving comment his not so subtle jab at me, trying to insinuate that even dressed up in a $1200 Hugo Boss suit, I would still not be above consuming far too much alcohol and then, very irresponsibly getting into my vehicle to drive, probably with a 40 oz. of 'crooked I' between my legs as I left?

Perhaps I'm overreacting, but perhaps I'm not. As I write this I think I've come up with a far better idea than letting these emotions get the best of me. In what we'll term a social experiment, in the manner that would make Randolph and Mortimer Duke proud, I would like to test a theory on ol' Byron. Do you think he'd give the same treatment to someone that did not look like me (and ironically HIM!)? I'll let you know if I actually get around to it. Hopefully this brotha won't be predictable.