The value of a neat appearance

The dry cleaner in town embodies one of my favorite values, earnestness. Customers hand over threadbare button-downs and slacks each week to be freshened. A woman in back, hidden between racks, threads the bobbin on her Singer. Every person receives a handwritten receipt at the register. While I wait to have a dress altered, I wonder: Am I more like these working people whom I so admire or more like the students on campus shuffling through the library in torn jeans? I wish for one, but I think I'm the other.