Just trying to keep it clean!

The pile of clothes in the corner waiting to go off to the dry cleaners is growing.
Now, I’m not a slob. (I swear.) Nor am I lazy. But that pile keeps on getting larger, and is beginning to take on the shape of Jabba the Hut. Today, when I came home from work, it had eyes. I’m afraid to see what it looks like tomorrow.
The problem is this: I’m cheap. And taking clothes down to the very expensive dry cleaners sometimes requires a co-signer and the name of your first born. Very against my frugal nature. I don’t go very many places; most of my life is lived in a uniform or like now, in pajamas curled up with a laptop, diligently tapping away at something. It might take me six months to get enough finery together to make the trip over to the cleaners.
It was in these six months that the Albertsons grocery chain coughed its death rattle, and took with it the little cheap dry cleaning counter it ran, both victims of the economy’s carnage of late.
I actually stood in the empty parking lot, Jabba in my arms, tumble weeds going by, staring at the dark store front. Now what do I do?
And please, no one suggest the over-the-counter sheets and bag that really don’t do anything that I can see. I wrecked a blazer with it once. An expensive one. Let me tell you how that goes over with my wallet.
Intent on bringing some business to my fellow local independent retailers, I check around town and got dizzy from the prices. I had to actually lie down.
So what is a girl to do, with a large, “dry-clean only” monster growing in the corner and a tight fist on her dollars?
My husband had a suggestion: Wear cheaper stuff. My suggestion back to him was not suitable for print.
If the pile gets any bigger I may have to have him build a spare addition on to the house. If it starts to speak, I’m moving out.