The Inseam Incident...

We go to these cleaners that are located just down the street from our house in the HEB Shopping center at Cross Creek (I know; I had no idea it was called Cross Creek either). Anyway, the folks there do fairly good work and the employees are generally friendly.

I have often been concerned that every time I go in and there is this one girl behind the counter, she has a really disinterested look on her face, almost to the point of rolling her eyes that I would even come in. I've told my wife several times that I think I am the victim of being stereotyped as a creepy middle-aged pervert or something. I mean, why else would the one girl not be friendly, when all the other employees are so nice?

Well, we may have had a break-through today. My wife texted me that I needed to pick up some stuff from the cleaners, so I went in with receipt in hand and waited while a nicely dressed gentleman, complete with blue-tooth earpiece waited for the girl to find his pants. As he waited, he occasionally chatted with his wife or mother or someone on the phone. It was really weird, as if he he just stays connected to the person on the other end and they trade occasional comments to one another. Unlimited minutes, I guess.

So the girl finds the pants and naturally, I start to move forward so I can hand her my ticket so we can get my stuff. Just then, the man says, "Wait just a second, we better take a look at these. They've been lost for two weeks; no telling what may have happened."

So I'm thinking to myself that he is going to look for stains or something, but instead he grabs the pants and holds them up to his waist. Turns out they had been sent in for alterations. He looks at the girl, then looks at me, then states, "There is no way these are 32 inches, they are way too long." I think to myself, "What say you go try them on and I'll just pick up my laundry."

The man then goes into some sort of rant about how they had been lost for two weeks and now, they clearly were not altered properly and by God, he had specifically told the other person they needed to be 32 inches long. As he said all this, the girl calmly walked to another counter, grabbed a tape measure and laid the pants flat on the counter. She then asked him how many inches he wanted the pants altered and he responded, "32 inches". She then placed the tape at the top of the inseam and measured down to the very bottom of the pants leg. 32 inches, exactly.

The man then looked at her and laughed, saying, "What is this, a joke?" He then went on to tell her that you always measure from the top waistband of the pants down to the bottom of the leg. He even looked at me as if to get some encouragement.

I try not to get involved in these things, but I just looked at him and said, "Have you ever heard the term, inseam?" He looked at me like I was choosing sides or something and then started to babble on about how every fine clothing place he had ever been to, they measured the inseam from the outside pants leg starting at the top of the waist. So again I could not help myself and I said, "Okay, you know that there is about 12 inches from the waist to the bottom of your crotch, and they cut exactly 32 inches from there. If they cut 32 inches from the waist, that would put your cuffs just below your knees. Can you say Capri's?"

The guy then muttered something into his blue-tooth device, and I suspect that was all the conversation he wanted from me. He then grabbed his pants and walked out saying that he would deal with the manager.

And with that, the girl at the counter suddenly smiled. And when she rolled her eyes at me, this time, it was to signify that the other guy was nuts. And I went home and told my wife that we have had a breakthrough in the laundry situation.

Ya gotta like that.

A Total Breakdown in Society: Proof in a Parking Lot...

On a routine visit to the dry-cleaners to pick up some laundry, I witnessed in a matter of seconds, proof that we are experiencing a total breakdown in the societal norms which allow us to be able to live together without clubbing one another over our heads. Because I keep my camera handy for moments such as this, I can provide the evidence you need.First, this is the sort of thing that you simply shake your head at. An inconsiderate person simply pulls into an available parking space without any notion that the lines were nicely drawn so as to assist him or her in the decision process on how best to situate the vehicle to best accommodate other vehicles whose owners may wish to park similarly. Here, good society has gone out of its way to help guide individuals into what can reasonably be agreed upon as the best use of space for everyone. Instead, our friend here parks in front of the Dry Cleaning Station taking two spaces.

Of course, you say, if they are just running in and out of the cleaners to pick up the laundry, how long could it possibly take? Well, if the person who parked in front of the cleaners had actually gone in to the cleaners, perhaps only a few seconds. But in this case, when I walked into the cleaners myself, they were not there. Probably a good thing to. Though I am the calm one who simply takes pictures, my wife let loose with a verbal thrashing of the inconsiderate person for all to hear.

But poor parking is mere child's play.

What kind of impatient bastard takes a dump in the middle of a parking lot?As I delicately stepped out the door of my vehicle, I spotted the foul evidence and loudly proclaimed, Oh! My! God! Eager to learn what I was OMG'ing about, my wife came to my side of the van to investigate what I had witnessed. In short order, she assed this to be Rottweiler poo and not the result of some poorly placed human defecation. WTF? Am I living in Animal Planet and is my wife suddenly an expert on the scat habits of large breed vicious dogs? Don't e-mail, I know Rottweilers are all friendly, it's just the owners that are bad.

Look, I've seen a Rottweiler take a dump on a street once while we were visiting my sister-in-law in Rockport; The beast just wandered down the middle of the street and looked at us and left about a foot long steamer that resembled an 8 day old banana. He actually looked at us and smiled when he did it. Now I know this might lead one to believe that it is a normal habit for a Rottweiler to crap on asphalt, but having viewed the aforementioned "business" and compared it to what someone left in the parking lot in front of the dry cleaners, I'm not so sure this wasn't the result of either a homeless guy or perhaps a young child being held up by a parent eager to avoid an accident in the pants.

Either way, like the truck driver who couldn't be bothered with parking between the lines, the person who left this little deposit has no respect for the people - the society that they live among.

And let's just say that maybe it was a Rottweiler, shouldn't that thing be on a leash?

Oh, and in case you are wondering, no, the sty that I had in my eye a while back did not come from watching that dog in Rockport poop on the street.

Attention PETA: No animals were harmed in providing proof of the total breakdown of society.