When I think about dry cleaning and San Francisco, one image pops up in my mind: that seminal scene from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (*).
I am talking about the 1978 remake by Philip Kaufman. The very best of the bunch, you know. As you might remember, the movie stars Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Carwright, and Leonard Nimoy.
So, at one point, Donald Sutherlund drops his clothing off at the Dry Cleaners. We see him walking along Grant Avenue, past the Four Seasons Restaurant. He enters the store and something very disturbing happens. The dry cleaning man is telling Donald that his wife looks like his wife "but she's not my wife, she's not my wife, you know?".Alright, there is nothing extraordinary, no special effects, no gore, nathing... But the sense of uneasiness and uncanny that I felt watching that scene still haunts me today, after all those years (30!).
Well, the good news is that I never feel uneasy dropping off my shirts at Joyce's place. Possibly because we are talking about the Richmond and not Chinatown. That is: the Body Snatchers have not arrived yet - they are probably intimidated by John Carpenter's Fog. Who knows? We are safe. For now.
Joyce, the lovely lady who is in charge of this store is kind, efficient, and ultra-fast. I've been coming here for more than three years, and I never encountered the slightest problem. In a sense, she adopted me. Often she sounds like my mom: "Oh, you're too skinny, eat something!" or "don't dry clean a t-shirt, save your money!" (but it's a Diesel t-shirt!) or "you should not be washing this shirt so often!" (full disclosure: like creative supreme mad man Donald Draper, I have a stock of identical white shirts in my drawer, what can I do?, I like consistency!).
Joyce has saved countless pieces of clothing, including: a G-Star white shirt with so many coffee stains that it turned brown; a jacket with Rorschach-like burgundy patterns (mostly, Nero d'Avola and Amarone, good years, too), and bed sheets with, huh, some compromising marks. No question asked.
Bottom line: Payless Cleaners will clean anything, including your dirty conscience.
* Mental note: if I were living in New York, I would probably think of "American Psycho"... Why do I have to constantly rely on popular culture to make sense of 'reality'? I need professional help... read more
