One of lifes firsts...

Today is a breakthrough day for me. I got to experience yet another "first" in my life, and I must say, its a good one. Today, I am wearing my first professionally laundered and pressed shirt. "What?" you say? Don't get me wrong. I've been to the cleaners many times, but always for the "dry clean only" stuff. When I first started working an office job, I was still in college (albeit grad school) and both had the time to iron and the mindset that paying someone to wash your clothes while you had a perfectly good mother to do it for you was ludicrous. Besides, I wasnt going to work for that company after I got outta school anyways, so why bother, right? Finishing grad school, I pretty much walked off the commencement ceremony carpet right in to my illustrious consulting career at... the same company. Hey what can i say? I'm a sucker for the comfort level that comes with familiarity. At any rate, even as a consultant there was really no need to pro launder since while I was in the office the old rules would apply and while I was at a client site I would have to iron anything that came out of the suitcase I was living out of anyway. Then came babies, marriages,and condos (not necessarily in that order and not necessarily plural), and with those things came the need to leave the comfort of what I know for the comfort of being able to stay at home with my family. (*NOTE: If you are not a member of my family please replace the bold face end of the previous sentence with "the comfort of getting a ridiculous salary increase". Just covering my bases.) Now I had a job where I had to focus on projecting myself in a professional manner every day. Even though the environment was casual, I make it a point to at least be business casual. I kinda have to since I look like a meathead (and lets face it, kinda AM a meathead) and have to make personal amendments to compensate for the public opinion that muscular guys are stupid. It sucks, but thats life. And to be honest, its no different from the opinion I share with others that all hot chicks are bitches. (This is definitely a topic for another post). Theres a good chance that its not true, but I havent been proven wrong yet. (*NOTE: If you are my wife, please suffix the preceding sentence with "except by my wife". *swish*) At any rate, the point is, I wear button down shirts and for the past couple of years I have been ironing them myself. Until NOW! *insert dramatic organ music riff* Since time is a commodity these days and it takes me roughly 25 minutes to iron one shirt (yes... I realize thats probably longer than most), my ridiculously, ridiculously (*swish, swish*) hot wife suggested I get some of my shirts laundered. After all, its only a buck per shirt to get it cleaned and pressed, which is like paying someone 2 bucks to give me an hour of free time. She brought the shirts yesterday morning. I picked them up yesterday afternoon. And today, I am wearing my first professionally laundered and pressed, non-dry clean only shirt... and it feels damn good.