New clothes, the rest of the story...

I knew there was trouble when my downstairs neighbor met me in the courtyard when she heard the street gate close.  "I just want to warn you that Stuart is not happy right now.  The laundry man gave your clothes to someone else."  I also knew the next conversation was not going to be pleasant.  While I was at spanish class, Stuart had gone around the corner to our laundry, Hole Lavanderia (pronounce ohLAY), to pick up the clean clothes promised for today.  The owner tried to give Stuart the wrong bag of clothes, and Stuart, with no spanish, wouldn't take them, but couldn't talk to the owner about the problem.   My neighbor speaks more spanish than I do, and I thought together we could figure out what happened.  The owner was not at all happy to see us, and was almost angry that we came back to ask.  He told us his young employee had given the clothes to the wrong person, she had read the ticket number incorrectly.  When I pointed out that the clothes were obviously wrong because they are packaged in clear plastic, he sputtered some incomprehensible reply.  No apology, and no plan to recover the clothes.  He had no clue who had them!

What to do?  We don't travel with lots of clothes, so we're both down to almost what we're wearing today.  And, my favorite linen dress is in that lost bag!  After some thought, I knocked on my sweet landlady's door, and told her the story.  Her face went red with anger immediately.  She took my arm, and we marched around the corner for her to talk to el dueno.  ohboy, was he angry now!  Maria, who is a tiny woman, spoke very politely and very softly.  So softly, he had to lean forward to hear her.  He, on the other hand, almost shouted at her, and was positively nasty.  I don't speak much spanish, but I understand alot, so I followed the conversation pretty well.  "This is the third time she's been here today!".  "Yes, but she needed an answer, which you didn't give her.  What do you plan to do to recover the clothes?"  "I can't do anything!"

Maria and I walked slowly back to our apartments.  We'll go back tomorrow, maybe the person who has our clothes will return them tomorrow, she said.  Nothing appeared for four days.  The fifth day, we gave Hole Lavanderia a list of lost clothes, the prices, with concession for the age of the clothes. It came to a significant amount, mostly because Stuart had 6 pairs of Thorlo socks in that bag.

By now, Stuart and I agreed we'd never see the clothes again, and we'd never get any money.  That man has nothing to give us.  Friends who heard the story suggested he stole the clothes, and we laughed at the idea.  What would he do with my clothes?  But, we had to begin to buy a few things.  The one shirt we each had  was getting smelly!  We knew of a low-price department store we'd walked past hundreds of times, but had never been in there. We went in, and bought some t-shirts, some pants and some underwear.  Plain clothes, but it's ok.

You can guess what happened.  The sixth day, our clothes mysteriously appeared, freshly folded and bagged.  The truth was el dueno had stolen them, and was going to sell them.  Maria told us this was the third time that man had stolen clothes from people living here.  And, yes, we are using a different lavanderia  now!

So, now I have my clothes back, and some new plain t-shirts.  I cut the neck from them, bought some cheap trim and sewed it on. The turq shirt was too long, so I cut it off at the bottom, too.  The bottom curled too much, so I stitched a band on it.  And, I bought some black/white fabric at the Telas Parisina (definately NOT Paris fabrics!) for a skirt and had enough left over to make a tank top.  The black bolero and skirt were made from t-shirts I bought in the States. I cut them out at home, and stitched them up here. Thankgoodness, I hadn't finished them before the laundry scare!  So, here are a few photos of my new wardrobe, the silver lining: