there's only one dry-cleaning place in grinnell

Last week while serving drinks at the Main pre-Waltz, some girl accidentally spilled some of her drink on me. I don’t know what drink it was exactly, most likely a Woo Woo (cran, peace schnapps, and vodka), but she got that shit all the Cache dress I was borrowing from Julia. This morning, I set off on an adventure to get it dry-cleaned somewhere in town. I started off at some place I found online called “Village Laundry”. I walked in and immediately saw boards on the walls listing dry-cleaning prices. Salvation was in sight. After peeking my head around corners in search of an owner and waiting a little while, salvation was in sight. Salvation was probably as surprised to see me as I was to see her. My dry-cleaning expert came in the form of this tiny little Asian woman. Why were we surprised to see each other? We’re both in Grinnell, Iowa. Even though the vast majority of dry-cleaning store owners in the United States are believed to be Asian, let’s not pretend like anyone expected there to be enough diversity in Grinnell to attract the poster laundry-mat owner. After our initial awkwardness, I asked her if she could dry clean my dress. I even pointed at the board with all the dry-cleaning prices. She told me that they didn’t do dry cleaning, but Jerry did. I asked her where I could find this Jerry character and she mumbled something about a gas station always being open and him being around its corner.

I got back into my car and decided that instead of following her extremely vague instructions, I would just go to the Maytag in town. When I got there, the lady behind the counter said that they also did not do dry-cleaning. She also told me to go behind the gas station that’s always open off of highway 6. I figured by the gas station that’s always open, she meant Kum and Go, which is, quite literally, almost always open.

Once again, I got into my car and drove two blocks down towards this four-lane road, no different than any residential street in the town, called highway 6. While approaching it, there was the Kum and Go on my right. Across the street from it, I saw a gas station called “Almost Always Open”. Surely enough, behind it, there was a tiny little hut looking like building called “Jerry’s Cleaners”. I’m scheduled to pick up my dry cleaning by the end of the week.