Dear dry cleaners,

I love you, really. My grandparents had a large laundry in Utrecht, so we had the rare luxury of picking up a package of razor-sharp folded laundry every week from my grandpa and grandma. My mother received a mangler iron for her fortieth birthday so she could also play laundry at home and we lay under hotel sheets.

Out of love for clothing, I also bring a bag to the dry cleaner every week. Beautiful sweaters, intricate dresses, but also my sheets. But I do have a few points for improvement. First: those terrible hangers. Ugly, not good for the clothes, and a waste for the environment because I think everyone throws them away. My advice: deliver the items on nice hangers and charge a deposit for them. This way they circulate and you can also do a bit of advertising for your business on those hangers.

Something else: safety pins all over. Recently, there were two safety pins on each pillowcase. But maybe even four. Why? I bring my items to the dry cleaner to avoid having to deal with them myself. Now I had to remove those safety pins from all the cases and there were holes in the cotton. Another dry cleaner once pinned the label ‘this dress has been treated’ on the front of a Gucci dress. Beyond two holes in the fabric, I don't need further proof that the dress was steamed.

Then there's something else, now that I'm on the subject. I don't know if I'm alone in this, but is there anyone who likes to feel such a cardboard strip in the neck as proof that the item has been steamed? Personally, I don't. It's always a hassle to get it out, and then I've removed the cardboard, but that plastic naturally stays put and then it itches all day in my neck. You need to know which item has been steamed and which hasn't, but we live in 2021, so there must be another way to process this in the system than this prehistoric fiddling.

I probably sound like a terribly spoiled brat in the middle of the corona slump, but otherwise, I'm a fan. Everyone go to the dry cleaner!