Dry Cleaning: The Finest Separation Between the Rich and the Poor
By Darby Graff
My name is Darby Graff and I work at Brookside Dry Cleaners. I am the face at the front. This means I’m not involved with the actual process of cleaning. I simply just check people's clothes in and once they're clean, hand them back to the customer. Dry cleaning is a strong example of how the working class supports the upper class. Rich people have created a whole industry based on people cleaning their clothes for them. It’s not complicated what the women in the back do, but the customers don’t care, or have any desire to learn… As the wage gap widens, the distance between the workers and the customer widens too. This is evident by the simple fact that when asking one of our regulars the name of the person who cleans their clothes every week, their response: a shrug and a wave.
This is Brookside Cleaners. It's situated in a small shopping center near Jenks East elementary. It's surrounded by white picket fenced neighborhoods that allow it to stay in business. However, the vast amount of money that surrounds this small business isn't the only reason why it can keep its doors open, it's the women inside that keep this ship afloat.
On this particular morning it is pretty slow. My way of seeing this is purely based on the laundry bags, which are only half full and aren't overflowing with Ralph Lauren button downs.
The aisles of clothes are the only things that separate the payers and the doers. The payers bring in their clothes once a week which–in all honesty–could be done at home. They pay a premium price for their clothes to be tediously cleaned. The doers put their sweat, sweat, and more sweat into the coffee spills, pit stains, and skid marks that plague the clothes.
This is the first stage that only the basic clothes go through. Since this is a dry cleaners, and the clothes are mainly just cleaned dry, hence the name, only laundry items go through this cycle. We have four of these machines because we get a shocking amount of laundry items.
The clothes with the nastiest stains come to this station. Any rust, oil, or food stains can be treated and cured with one of the many elixirs.
This is Ana. She has been here all day long, treating stains, pressing clothes, and watching her favorite Soap Opera. Despite the heat and humidity, she is one of our happiest employees. This job means she can support her family back home in Mexico, who she spends hours on the phone facetiming a day.
This is Maria. Maria doesn't have earbuds or a phone to distract her from the monotonous task of pressing, folding, and hanging. She prefers to listen to the sound of machines whirring, beeping, and buzzing. They keep her focused and efficient as they resemble timers going off in her head.
This is Alexis. Another presser that needs this job more than anything. She's a single mother of three at the young age of twenty-seven. Her youngest is only a few months old, and has been getting sick a lot. Despite all of the challenges she faces she still manages to send money back to her family in Mexico to support them.
After a lazy morning "the line" as we call it, looks pretty barren. With no shirts, skirts, scarves to be placed on one of the many aisles of clothes. The Line is the place that I, a front desk girl, often scurries to when an angry corporate man doesn’t have one of his many white shirts cleaned on time.
This is the back door of Brookside cleaners. It's not pretty, but it's an accurate representation of the amount of chemicals that are poured into clothes, cracked hands, and sprayed into the pressers faces everyday. It’s all a part of the process to keep the white picket fence, corporate boy, and housewife livers happy and clothed. It also brings independence and freedom to the women that work everyday to provide happy full lives to their families miles and miles away. It’s strange how in some ways dependence can lead to more independence.
