A few days ago I took some clothing to the dry clearner for my father. I hadn't look inside the bag he put them in, so when I got there, I had an embarrassing surprise. Their where shirts in there so dirty that they should have been thrown out. All could have been placed in the washing machine to clean. The clerk there, a middle aged woman, didn't really want to touch them. I understand completely. I didn't want to touch them either. It made me feel horrible to think that she thought these things were mine, so I said, they're not mine. Didn't really think anything of it. She replied, an old man's clothes? And I nodded my head. She was nice. A very friendly woman. I had no anger against her for what she said. My father is old. It was a keen observation.

Let me add some back information: My father doesn't have much money. I've been helping him financially and it's getting harder. i'm having to cancel cable, cut my food bills, and am in danger of losing my ability to pay rent. He tells me that he has no intentions of changing how he lives so this is fine with him. He's been waiting for his pension checks to start, so his financial condition isn't permanent. Still, he's been waiting over 6 months now, so this is a problem for me.

So, when I got home, hoping this would stop him from sending shirts like that again, I told him what the woman had said. A dumb move, certainly. Now, he intends to go to the cleaners to get the woman fired. I'm horrified. Jobs are hard to find nowadays and although I would never have said that to a customer, everyone deserves a second chance.

I tried talking my father out of it, but to no avail. He hung up on me. I even pointed out that everyone deserves to be forgiven. He's always saying that to other people, but he still won't listen. And he calls himself a Christian.

I mentioned my hearing loss and that I wasn't wearing hearing aides on the day it happened. I'm not worried that the woman will actually lose her job. I plan to talk to the manager and explain the whole thing. I plan to tell the manager that the incident never happened, and that I can't figure out how my father got such an idea in his head. I hate lying, but I'm not going to see someone fired over this.