The dry cleaning conundrum

Both of my two suits are in urgent need of a good dry cleaning. However, I presently have virtually no way to actually get this done due to the constraints of wearing them at work and having no access to a dry cleaners when I am not at work as they are all closed (and with Sainsbury’s having been demolished and being re-built in the town centre there aren’t even any supermarket annexe dry-cleaners open later).

To put you in the picture, at the moment I have two suits and six shirts. Three shirts match one suit and three shirts match the other. So it is fairly impracticable to go for an entire week wearing just one suit or the other. Meaning I need to deposit one suit with the dry cleaners mid-week and collect at the weekend (or vice versa).

However, I leave for work at around 8am and am generally not home until around 6pm. So I cannot drop off or pick up suits from dry cleaners in Maidenhead as there are none which are open when I am there during the week. Equally I can’t take a suit with me on the way to work as carrying it on the train would be a nightmare in the morning due to the crowded train and logistics of getting it there and back without it getting damaged or majorly creased.

So far I have four possible solutions, none of which I like.

First one is to leave work extra early one day mid-week so I can be back to Maidenhead before 5pm and get a suit to the dry-cleaners and then pick it up on Saturday (or vice versa). I don’t like this though as it means I would have to leave work extra early mid-week when I like to stay later so I can build up my flexi-time and leave extra early on a Friday and have some residual time left over in case of a ‘I’m hungover so I am going in late this morning’ situation.

A variation on this is to do the going home extra early mid-week thing but take both suits at the same time and then go into work in casuals for the rest of the week (because I don’t actually possess any clothing that could be considered ‘smart casual’). I am allowed to do this but it is seriously frowned upon to be in casuals and see members of the public which is an almost daily occurrence and not being able to do so can seriously impinge on my work schedule (no site visits). This has a slight advantage though as it would be a less frequent occurrence than the above option as I could do both suits in one go and thus have to do it half as often.

The third is to take a day or two off work and take both suits to be dry cleaned at the same time. I really don’t like this idea as it means taking time off work to do dry cleaning which is a ridiculous reason to use up work leave.

Or I could just buy another suit (expensive and time consuming) and thus have the flexibility to drop one of the then three off and leave it at the dry cleaners weekend to weekend.

I haven’t decided which one is the best yet. Any other suggestions are welcomed.