“Hey, I’m here to drop off my suit. I don’t know how this happened, but there’s a pizza stain on the collar, a white hand-print on the breast, some road-salt on the left cuff, oh, and the zipper on my pants is broken…can I have your number?” No matter how many times I run through the scenario in my head, I can’t seem to make the last part any smoother.

You should probably know; I’ve been in love with the girls who work at the Edina dry-cleaners since I moved here five years ago. There’s something mysterious about them. For one, I’ve never seen the same girl twice. It just seems to me that they are constantly re-shuffling attractive, semi-funny, pseudo-nihilistic college girls to work the counters, swooning teenage boys and soccer moms alike. Valentine’s Day is fast approaching, and if I’m going to land a date with one of my dream girls, I better think of a good plan.

A bit more background, I attribute the re-kindling of my attraction to these women with the speech season officially starting. I’ve been making weekly visits now, to drop off my suit, oxfords, ties, anything. If I ran out of things to bring, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.

The scenes always play out a bit more…romantically in my mind than they do in real life. I’m always embarrassed at the number of little “stain stickers” they have to put on my formal wear. In my mind, they have a running tally going, and when I dip below an average of 4 stickers per visit, they’ll come crawling out from behind the counter and ask to be my girlfriends. That’s pretty sick, no?

Ding ding. “Hey.” I look really manly standing at the counter…never mind the fact that I’ve come to drop off my mom’s blouse. “There’s a stain there, here, and back on this side.” “I didn’t know you wore blouses.” So she was flirting with me. “Oh, I only wear blouses to parties,” I added smoothly. “Um, what are you talking about?” So maybe it was just in my head. Go back to playing Farmville on your laptop, I don’t need affection. I’ll try back next week, maybe my luck will be better then.

So, I’ve convinced my mom that socks really do need dry cleaning. I told her that, “you can lose 90 percent of your body heat if your socks aren’t properly creased to hold hot air pockets.” With my body mass index, and these cold winter months, she put up little to no fight.

Ding ding. “Hey.” I have a plastic bag filled with purple socks. “I really don’t need you to starch these,” I told her. “Are you like…crazy or something?” “What! I don’t like my socks to be so stiff.” Perfect, she’ll know I’m a laid back kind of guy. Maybe I should compliment her on that lip ring…nah, I’ll save it for next time. “Is Wednesday OK?” she asks. “You’re already setting up our second date? We haven’t even finished the first.” Wow, these girls move fast.

As I slowly came down from my love-crazed endorphin high, I realized something. I like these women because they are obligated to speak with me, they are paid to make small talk. They’re just in it for the money…here I was thinking it was love. Happens every time.