so I go to the cleaners last week to drop off some clothes. They’re pretty competitively priced, located in an “urban” strip mall.
I go in and the guy who works there, (who seems to have gotten sloppier in appearance since my first impression) says,

“we only do pre-pay now. and our credit card machine isn’t working.”

if this were a TV show, there’d be a flashback to the previous week when picking up some shirts he solicited me to buy ad space in a booklet serving as a fundraiser for an organization known to rehabilitate former drug abusers.

As long as I’ve been going there, could this have coincidentally been the one day that the credit card machine went down? I’m not saying that my money would not make it to the register, but I’ve never heard of a pre-paid dry cleaners. Maybe there’re some out there. but i’m not trying to be a customer.