The Case of the $65 Million Pants

A long time ago, I brought my brother's suit to our local dry cleaner a week before his school ball. When I came to pick it up, they gave me the wrong suit. It had my ticket number attached to the garment but it was obviously not his: the suit was too big and had subtle but ugly stripes that my brother wouldn't wear in a million years.

I calmly told them they gave me the wrong suit but couldn't hide my irritation; it's going to be a nightmare getting my brother another suit if they couldn't find the right one. The Korean immigrant owners didn't speak very good English, so they brought their young daughter out to deal with me. That's when things turned ugly.

Obviously, this young woman didn't take public relations 101, much less go to charm school. She was rude and combative. Instead of apologizing, she basically said tough, you have to deal with it. This after years and hundreds of dollars of my patronage. It got down to me threatening to sue, and she basically said bring it on. I probably would've if her parents weren't such nice people.

I guess they should thank their lucky stars I'm not like this outrageous judge who has nothing better to do than sue his dry cleaner for $65 million, nay, now $67 million for his missing pants. Heck, I'd settle for .001% of that. Did I mention that the dry cleaner eventually found the pants and the judge still won't budge?

Here is a French report on the story (it needs no translation) with footage of the supposedly honorable Judge Pearson:



There's also a good opinion piece written by blogger Dick Mac here.

And speaking of pants, one of my pet peeves are sales catalogs and newspaper ads flaunting bargain prices for a "pant". There's no such thing as a "pant", which is just one leg of a full pair of pants. "Pant" is not singular for a pair of pants just as "short" is not singular for a pair of shorts, so stop saying "pant" you ridiculous ad people!

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