The other day I went to the dry cleaners to pick up the load of shirts I left the previous week. I usually wait until I'm down to my odd colored dress shirts before I make the trip. This occasion was no exception. The clothes cupboard was bare and I didn't want the same fate for myself.

I'm a light starch and hangers guy. Frankly, I don't like starch at all. Whoever invented the starched shirt collar had no sense of humor. But I've tried my shirts without starch and I'm a wrinkled mess by 9:05 a.m. without it.

The dry cleaner I frequent is owned by an Asian couple. Even though I've been going to these folks for years, I only know the wife's name. She's Helen. They are both very nice. I know that they are nearing retirement and that they both work hard.

It's funny how you can do business with the same folks for years and not know their names. At some point it feels like you are past the point of asking. That's where I am with Mr. Dry Cleaner.

Helen and her husband know my name because of the little faded red claim check they issue each time I visit. I'm Mr. S(c)hultz to them. For the first couple years I tried to get them to spell my name without the "c." Finally I gave up. There are other things more important

It's more important, for instance, that they not loose your clothes than spell your name right. Helen and her husband have never lost anything I've ever left with them.

When I went to get my shirts this last time Helen greeted me as follows:

"Seven shirts."

No "Good morning," or "How are you." just "Seven shirts."

Each time I arrive at the dry cleaner I follow a little ritual. I walk up to the counter and place the hangers I am returning to my left. I make a little racket with the hangers and this announces my arrival. Mr. Dry Cleaner seems pleased to receive the hangers. "Thank you for hangers," he says. Helen seems annoyed and never mentions the hangers. I do not know if they can use the hangers - but I sure don't want them.

Anyway, I put the hangers to my left, the pile of dirty shirts in front of me, and the claim check for the old batch to my right. Then I count the shirts and announce the total to Helen or her husband. He or she writes down the number of shirts on a new claim check, hands the check to me and then steps away to get my shirts. I then step to the right of the cash register and get out my wallet. Whoever is waiting on me then hangs the new shirts on a rack to my far right and then proceeds to take my money. Our routine never varies and it is designed to move me towards the exit. Sometimes I pay and then forget to take the shirts.

No system is perfect.

On this occasion I learn that last week's shirt count was incorrect. I tallied 6 shirts that I was leaving but it turned out that I had actually left 7.

Clearly my mistake had been on Helen's mind. It was a week since I had left the shirts and she greeted me immediately with the correct shirt count.

Helen and I don't talk much, but this occasion was an exception. She explained to me that she has a system where she double checks the laundry with the claim check she issues. Helen said it's not such a problem when the claim check understates the items left. But "big deal" was her description when the receipt shows the item count to be more than was left.

Helen said that when a shirt is missing or damaged most people shrug it off. Most say "it was old," or "it's not a problem." But a few people add drama to a miscount, Helen explained.

"$400, they say," she recounts to me in one story of a missing shirt.

Starch your collar, count your shirts, keep your claim check and take your laundry home after paying. Little lessons, little routines. But first, exchange names, it makes things all the nicer.