Other People’s Dirty Laundry
Dear Mouthy Housewives,
A friend recently returned some maternity clothes to me. I don’t even need them anymore but I’d like to lend them to another friend. Here’s the problem—they were returned completely dirty. Am I supposed to pay for all these sweaters to be dry cleaned? I don’t want to hand them over to my other friend dirty. What should I do?
Signed,
I Don’t Want to Pay For It
___________________________
Dear Don’t Want To,
Well, I hope you learned a really important lesson: No good deed ever goes unpunished. What were you thinking, lending maternity clothes to another preggo? In this dog-eat-dog world, being helpful to a friend is practically a felony.
And your friend is no fool, she knows this. She borrowed the clothes, used them, by apparently rolling in the mud like the pig that she is, and then dropped them off at your place. Easy peasy.
You, on the other hand, seem to be happy to rinse and repeat by lending the clothes to yet another “friend.” I don’t know how you can live with yourself.
I know that you’re expecting me to say, “Talk to your friend. Ask her gently if she’d mind taking the clothes to the dry cleaner’s and returning them to you in the condition that she received them, less ordinary wear and tear of course, tee hee!” Well, I’m not saying it.
I’m saying, pay for the dry cleaning yourself. You’ll feel really resentful towards your friend, but that feeling will really help you when she asks to borrow some baby clothes, or maybe a bouncy seat. Oh, how you’ll snap at her when she asks if she could possible borrow your Maclaren. Really, have your Flip camera ready for that one. I mean, the friendship will be ruined, but it will feel fantastic to get all that festering resentment off your chest.
Or, if you sort of like your friend despite her bad manners, maybe you should just go ahead and ask her to dry clean the clothes. It’s a small awkward price to pay to save a friendship.
Yours in cleanliness,
Marinka, TMH
4 Responses to “Other People’s Dirty Laundry”
Comment by GrandeMocha.
I only loan stuff out I don’t want back. Then if they try to return it I say, “Keep it!” I have lost too much to play the game.
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Comment by becks.
Well, what do you do if the cousin-in-law you are borrowing the clothes from drops off the clothes at your mother-in-law’s house, and your MIL smokes like a fiend and anything that is in her house for more than 30 seconds smells like the Marlboro Man’s chaps (and not in a good way)? So that all these beautiful skirts and blazers smell awful? I ended up just washing the stuff that could be washed, but the blazers and a couple of skirts with gorgeous intricate beading and pleating I just stored in my basement. Now it’s time to return the stuff and they still smell like stale smoke and I don’t feel like I should have to dry clean the stuff especially since I tried to insist that she leave the stuff at HER mother’s for me and I’d pick it up there, but Oh No, she had to take it to my MILs.
So I was debating leaving the stuff at my MILs for her to pick up, but that seems overly ignorant… Do I just tell her I didn’t end up wearing some of the stuff?
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Comment by MommyTime.
I do most of my dry cleaning in those bags you can put in your dryer with dry cleaning cloths. This works especially well for sweaters. If they are actually stained, a professional will need to do them. Otherwise, you can do them yourself for about $5 for a whole batch.
Becks: just take all of these nice pieces and hang each separately on a hanger and hang them outdoors for an afternoon. The breeze and fresh air will remove all the stale smoke smell (even in the middle of winter if it’s cold where you are), and as long as it’s not too windy, so the hangers can’t blow down, they’ll be fresh and fine in just a few hours.
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Cranky Sarah Reply:
February 25th, 2010 at 9:40 pm
I had a similar experience with my best friend and baby clothes. She’s usually such a good care taker of clothing but the baby stuff came back ruined. I just didn’t offer to lend her anything else as her daughter grew.
As for Becks, I would just take them back to MIL’s before you tell CIL. Then maybe she’ll understand the situation. Some people don’t really “get it” until they’ve experienced it for themselves.
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