(Not) Taken to the Cleaners – by Ellen

After a couple of days of hand washing, it starts to get a little boring. But we’d been assured that if we dropped our laundry off by 7am, it would be ready by midday. Perfect. So, at 7am we bagged up our stuff and went to hand it in. It had been decided that, as the incompetency and rudeness of the staff at the Etosha reception desk Really Irritated me (sorry, but PMT and the heat don’t mix well) I should stay in the car.

I watched Evan take the bag to the counter. I watched Evan be handed a sheet of paper. I watched Evan look from the piece of paper to the receptionist and back again. I watched Evan start to pace up and down. I watched Evan head back towards the car with a look of absolute disbelief on his face. He handed me the piece of paper: it was a list of laundry prices, with space by each item for you to record the number of each garment type and whether or not you wanted them ironed.

Underwear/pair: $10.00
T-Shirt: $15.00
Towel (medium): $55.00
Handkerchief: $5.00
Trousers: $45.00

Not only would it probably be quicker to hand-wash everything we owned than count out our undies, decide whether we wanted them ironed, and fill in the form, but our bill would probably have been around $800.00 – that’s about 80 quid. For laundry. For laundry.

Sigh.