Vernon's Birthday Gift

A while back I stopped doing my own laundry, and it went something like this:

I don't have a washer and dryer in my condo but rather there is a laundry room on the 3rd floor of my building. I started thinking that I should look into one of those services that picks up your cleaning and returns it to your door and charges per pound. After all, I'm paying to do laundry in my building as it is and my time has got to be worth a couple bucks on top of that, right? It worked out pretty well for a while, but in the end I couldn't justify the cost. It wasn't a terrible expense, about $1.75 per pound, but it was still averaging about 7 dollars more each time than what I spent in my building's laundry facility. I decided 2 hours of my time wasn't worth 7 dollars (I'm a mean boss to myself).

Right about the time I started not being able to justify the expense of this convenience, the laundry company dissolved and the driver who always picked up my laundry kept some of his valued clients by taking their business (and his) to another laundry service. Because he was now just an independent driver taking TONS of business to a laundry facility, the price dropped to 50 cents per pound and only one dollar (you heard me, ONE dollar) for each piece of dry cleaning- no matter what it is. In other words, I had a suit dry cleaned the other day and the two-piece suit cost two bucks to have cleaned, AND it was picked up at my front door and returned to my front door 7 hours later. My laundry, at 50 cents per pound, also gets returned to me folded and ready to be put away. Now my time DEFINITELY is worth 50 cents a pound.

Can't beat it with a stick.

So anyway, I always tip Vernon, the driver, several dollars. He's a nice guy and very punctual, which I appreciate. He must appreciate me a bit, too: my phone rang a few minutes ago and I saw on the caller ID that it was Vernon calling. More specifically it showed up as it is categorized in my phone book: "Vernon Laundryservice." "Hmmm, what could this be about" I thought. Well, apparently one of Vernon's clients works for Ticketmaster and tipped him the other day with 30 front row tickets to the Brooks and Dunn / ZZ Top concert. Good ole' Vernon called some of his favorite clients, which apparently includes me, and started passing out front row seats to the show. How nice is that?! Way to pay it forward Vern! His exact words were "I don't know who Brooks and Dunn are." Vernon doesn't even know my birthday is next week, but I'll consider this his birthday gift to me. He even said "how many do you want, brotha?" I'm not his brother but I took 4. What a nice surprise.

Oh by the way... I know, I know.. "ZZ Top / Brooks and Dunn?!" you might say. Random, yes, but whatever. Not saying I necessarily would have gone out of my way to buy tickets on my own but hey, it's front row, it's free and it's something fun for an otherwise uneventful Thursday night next week.

Thanks Vernon!
M.db