Hang Up Your Fricken Clothes
Your mom told you to do this, right?
I work out of a nice little first-floor bedroom space in my house (which has had its attic panelled, dormered and drywalled to provide the actual bedrooms in what started out as a Cape Cod with one finished level). Before I even got moved in I affixed peg strips to the inside of the room’s door and the front of its closet door. Handsome, heavy hangers, including clip hangers for your slacks or skirt, are arrayed on these pegs.
I can count on two or three people a week taking off their clothes, folding them carefully and placing them, not even on the boot bench which I provide for comfortable dressing and undressing, but on the floor, right where I have to stand and walk as I navigate around the table during the session.
Men, usually. But not invariably.
What’s the message here? People cannot see? People dislike hangers? People want to trip me up? People want to telegraph some strange grovelling belief that they aren’t entitled to use the hangers and pegs that are in plain sight (perhaps I am saving them for the robes of Massage Angels who come to bless me periodically)?
I try to remember to point out the hangers when receiving new clients, but I can’t understand why it is necessary.
Sixteen Tons 
One always has to point out the bleeding obvious ……. obviously
I don’t get this at all. I would never drop clothes on the floor that I intended on wearing again. I don’t even do it at home – that’s what the laundry hamper is for.
I would just say “would you mind hanging up your clothes? they are in the way” when this happens, then walk out and give them a few minutes to tidy up. Seems like a perfectly reasonable request to me.
That’s funny … and tragic. Maybe you should just say something like, “Look, I installed these pegs for you to hang your clothes on.” Maybe they really never noticed them. You can probably count on it. They probably need to be told. :-/.
haha – is it because hangers are for ‘fresh’ clothes and folding is for ‘worn’ clothes? I’m now going to ask when I go to a new therapist!
I don’t have pegs, I have a chair in the corner they can drape things over. Even so, there are clients who neatly fold their clothes and leave them in a pile on the floor. And oddly, the people who leave their clothes on the floor almost never just drop them willy nilly, they are almost always perfectly folded and stacked. This has always confounded me.
Fortunately my massage room is big enough that I don’t trip over them, but I have what I realize to be rather luxurious accommodations. But when the pile of clothes is in my way, I have no problem picking it up and placing it on the chair out of my way. But that’s just me.
Oh, I pick the pile up and park it too — that’s what the boot bench is handy for. But it really is weird that there is all this neat folding and stacking and then it goes on the floor. And that the same people will often do it a second or third time before they get it.
It has always seemed very odd to me that clothes on the floor require neat folding and clothes on the chair can just be tossed there.
I suppose that when people are in the post-massage fog they don’t really notice where their clothes are in relation to where they left them. I’ve had watches and other jewelry left behind because of that mental state. One client did it so often with her watch that she started putting her watch in her shoe when she disrobed because she was pretty sure that she would notice it was there when she was getting dressed.
I just don’t understand that AT ALL. I mean, I can sort of imagine the kind of person who would simply discard their clothes on the floor, but folding them neatly on the floor when there are hangers and somewhere to put the neat pile???
That’s just odd.
Maybe you need another sign “Please use the hangers for your clothes”.
I had this problem mainly in school where people put their clothes god knows where. Now, I just tell clients, even repeat ones, over and over again with a demonstration of (take off the robe, flapping hands, and hang it over there). The few times I’ve had it on my stool or something like that I gotta move it. And god forbid with the sandals we give them, I’m surprised I haven’t broken my nose tripping over them when I’m trying to massage and pushing the shoe away from me with one foot as my other foot is planted and I still massage them.
My room is pretty big too… I love it. But, they always seem to put their sandal shoes right in my damn path every friggin time and when I trip over them I just want to kick them so badly. Anyways, love this post, I need to check out the rest of the series!