A New Test

Well, things had gone along pretty quietly over the past few weeks so we decided to add some adventure. I had a task on Tuesday, take in the dry cleaning. Olga and I had visited the place about a week earlier and decided to give it a try. I finished my language lesson in the morning and figured I'd get my chore done early, so I stopped by the hotel and grabbed our things for the dry cleaner.

I found the place again with relative ease. Hah, this is going to be simple! I greeted the lady with my best 'zdratsvootia' (that's the formal 'hello') and she smiled and said hello back to me. Then the conversation took a turn into....well, into a wall quite frankly. She started rattling off sentences and I had no clue what was being said. At this point I'm thinking, 'sh*&, this is going in the same direction as the restaurant and I have no other place to go!'. So I politely asked if she speaks English. 'NYET'. Double sh*&. Now what? Then I hear a word that I recognize 'chetiyet' (read). She's asking me if I can read Russian. Well heck ya I can read it! So she starts writing down all kinds of stuff on the paper in what can only be described as chicken scratch. Uh oh. She asked if I could read it, not comprehend!!!

So I used one of my most frequently stated phrases 'ya nee penimiu' ('I don't understand'). And she grunts. This is not going as I had planned. Then I hear another word I know, 'zaftra' ('tomorrow'). Ok, something is going to happen tomorrow. That's good. Could the clothes be ready tomorrow? Then she says that she is going to work tomorrow. Again, Ok, but I'm not sure how that helps me here. Hmmm. She points to the calendar, to the 8th of July. I realize she is telling me that the clothes will not be ready until the 8th....uh, that's A WEEK. Whatever happened to same-day cleaning???

I wearily agree that I will come back on the 8th after 12PM (I assume this is what she meant when she pointed to the 12 on my watch). She made some gestures with Olga's blouse that I assumed meant wash and iron, so I nodded my head. She made the same gestures again, so I nodded my head again. Getting nowhere fast now. She shook her head in frustration. I'm thinking, 'what, you can only get clothes washed OR ironed, but not both?'. She finally wrote out on a piece of paper what I was leaving with her and stamped it (not sure what this was for). She pointed to the calculator...I owed 1,400 Rubles (about $55 for 4 pairs of jeans, one blouse and one pair of pants). So I paid, took my piece of paper and walked out. Chore complete!

At this point I honestly have no idea if we will ever see these clothes again. And if we do, in what condition will they be in? I'll let you know on July 8th (after 12 PM Moscow Time).