Step 1a: Wear the same pair of pants every day for a month.
1b.: Spill tea, hot sauce, lotion, etc. on them (almost) every day.
1c.: Finally deem them Too Disgusting To Wear Without First Being Cleaned and toss them on the floor of the closet.
1d.: Think to yourself, “Throwing these dirty pants on the floor will ensure I don’t wear them again before taking them to the dry cleaners! I am so smart!”
1e.: Pick up dirty pants off the closet floor the next morning and wear them.
Step 2: Repeat Steps 1b through 1e for the next two months. Possibly three.
Step 3: Finally decide you’ve had enough – your pants are REALLY too gross and disgusting to be worn again, for realz – so collect all your Dry Clean Only items and throw them in the backseat of your car.
Step 4: Drive around with dirty pants and other dirty Dry Clean Only items for a week, maybe two. (But not three; that’s just gross.)
Step 5: Finally take clothes to the dry cleaners. When the dry cleaner asks, insist you need your clothes back ASAP. End of the week! No later! I need clean clothes!
Step 6: A month later, when you get worried about the dry cleaners giving away your beloved pants, go pick up your dry cleaning.
Congratulations, now you have clean clothes!
A very, very long time ago, I left a sweater at the dry cleaner so long that they sold it. SOLD IT. I really feel like they should have given me the money from the sale.
Or you could wear your husband’s clothes (I do this sometimes – instead of wearing my own t-shits, I wear his) so that when the time comes to do laundry, you can be all “Hmm, all of this stuff appears to be yours. Look at my side of the closet! Chock full of Things To Wear!” Then you don’t have to be the one going around naked because you have no clothes. He does. So everyone wins! Except him.
And this is why I don’t buy things that say “dry clean only.” 😉