026 - sesame

The buzzer on the large industrial dryer went off, but it didn't need to. Mister Jalowski was waiting for it to finish, and the second the machine stopped spinning, he had the door open, and poured the contents into the waiting laundry cart. He brought it over to the nearby table used for folding, and he began to do so.

Another buzzer went off, this time the one that indicated a customer had come into the shop. Internally, Jalowski wished that his wife or one of his other employees were in the shop so that he didn't have to stop his current work in order to take care of this customer that had just walked in. Alas, it was a slow weekday afternoon and they couldn't justify paying for an employee at this time.

He sighed and put down the shirt he was in the middle of folding. It would have to wait. The stocky, balding man made his way towards the front of the shop, where a tall man with a head full of hair was waiting on the other side of the counter.

"How can I help you today?" he asked the tall man.

"Um, yeah," the man replied in a snotty tone. He continued, "I dropped off a few of my jackets here last week to be dry cleaned. Can I get 'em?"

Mister Jalowski was put off by his tone, but kept up appearances of a cheerful shopkeep. "Of course sir, just give me your ticket and I'll be happy to get your clothing for you."

"My ticket?! YOU THINK I HAVE A TICKET? WHAT AM I, A TICKET MAN? THEY ARE MY CLOTHES, GIVE THEM TO ME!"

Despite this outburst, the expression remained largely unchanged on the shopkeeper's face. "We need a ticket to identify which clothing is yours."

The man calmed a bit, but was still a touch irate. "It should be pretty obvious which clothing is mine."

Jalowski didn't know what to say to this. He had already asked for a ticket twice, surely that should have been enough. So he just sat there, looking his customer in the eyes. For a brief moment, no one said anything.

"Well, are you going to get my stuff for me?!"

Jalowski shrugged. "Eh, well, the ticket..."

"AGAIN WITH THE TICKET? I'LL SHOW YOU A TICKET!"

The customer walked to the front door of the shop, which consisted of several panes of glass. He head-butted the upper pane of glass, shattering it, before opening the door, exiting, and slamming it behind him. Shards of broken glass fell from the frame.

Jalowski went back to the folding table, and picked that semi-folded shirt back up. He sighed again, and then resumed his folding. There was, after all, a lot of laundry to be folded.