Monday, November 1, 2010

Drycleaning...

So today is a Beautiful fall day in Bulgaria.  Today is a day that I've decided I like our new home.   Excited to great the day (and trying to ignore the fact that I'm coming down with the sniffles) I set out this afternoon to run some errands.  Matt is in desperate need of having his suits dry cleaned and with our upcoming trip it was critical to get the dry cleaning complete this week.   So I head out to the dry cleaners for the first time.  I have a huge bag, I look like the bag lady.  I walk into the Eco dry cleaners and cheerfully great the two ladies working behind the counter.  One starts speaking bulgarian and I say "ahhh, i'm sorry.  Engleski?"  And she says "no, Francois but no Engleski" and laughs at me with a tone that says "you stupid American."  I begin to unload my bag o' clothes onto her counter and she begins saying "no, no, no."  I stop and say "what?"  She points to the cat hair and one of Matt's pants. 

Sidenote:  This weekend I asked Matt to pull out all suits that needed dry cleaning and he "threw" them in a chair in our bedroom.  Chloe loves this chair, so this meant that Chloe laid all over the suits for the entire weekend.  She looked like she was in heaven, actually.  I never made her move because I thought "what does it matter?  We are taking this suits to be cleaned anyway." 

So the dry cleaning lady asks if the hair is from a dog or cat.  I tell her a cat.  She proceeds to tell me no, no, no.  She will not dry clean these items for me.  I proceed to pull out every article of clothing in my bag and find one suit that she agrees to dry clean.  Then, I get all pissed that she's not going to dry clean the rest of my things.  After all this IS a place where you bring clothes to be cleaned!  Why was she refusing service to me?  So I say "you know what, never mind.  This is ridiculous."  At this point I'm quite positive she can understand me just fine since I've been communicating with her in English the whole time.  I storm out of her store with my huge bag and head on my way.  I'm now on the brink of tears.  Then I realize I've turned the wrong direction out of the store so I have to turn around and walk PAST the darned store again.  I'm sure those Bulgarian women were sitting in there reveling in their meanness. 

I proceeded to walk to the embassy with my huge bag of clothes.  I heard there was a dry cleaner there.  Matt calls during my walk and finds the whole scenario hilarious since he asked me this weekend if we should remove Chloe from the pile of suits and I told him not to worry about it since we were taking them to be cleaned anyways. 

So, I go to the store at the embassy that handles dry cleaning.  I ask her if there is an issue with the cat hair, will they clean my clothes?  The lady looks at me like I have 6 heads and says she's never heard of such an issue.  Our clothes will be ready on Thursday.  We'll see how they turn out....