There I sat with my coffee in one hand and cookie in the other, taking notes on my laptop.

All day and into the setting sun, I sat quietly in my car on Waterville’s Main Street, behind the tinted windows of my spotless Prius, trying not to draw attention like some character in a script.

Slumped down in my seat, I watched the crowds streaming past on their way to the 28th Maine International Film Festival that was drawing huge crowds into the massive windowed Paul J. Schupf Art Center.

No, I wasn’t there to count the number of customers or what they were going to see, but to see what they were wearing. And no, I have not been hired as a fashion writer for this paper. We don’t have big city “fashion” in central Maine. We’re plain old working-class Mainers who just turn out for special occasions with combed hair and smiles and nicely pressed clothes that have to be cleaned. Oh boy!

I counted the ladies in flowery summer frocks and shorts and gentlemen in freshly washed jeans and T-shirts.

So this is summer, right? And isn’t summer full of Sunday church going and weddings where well-behaved Mainers all get dressed up to throw rice at brides in white gowns and grooms in borrowed or rented tuxedos that get dirty and have to be cleaned before you take them back?

I’m wondering. What are you gonna do with all that when they get dirty and you need A DRY CLEANER in a town where there are NO DRY CLEANERS?

Well, it happens, and now the ONE dry cleaners just sent you a notice to come and get your stuff like they were misbehaving children.

Yes, I’ve moaned about this before, over and over, that our one and only dry cleaner has gotten sick and is dying and all shuttered and dark. Stuff happens.

Yes, there are dry cleaners. They’re in Augusta. Yes, you are right. Inconvenience raises its tired head.

So who, I ask, who will do all the washing and ironing when there is no “Lady of The House.” Aha! This is where I and a few many others come in.

So I have discovered the steam iron She put away when holding it became too clumsy and heavy for her arthritic hand to hold. Didn’t I used to iron? Yes, I did, and suddenly I remembered how I did so back in my younger theater days, with dozens of roommates who had never met an iron. I was the only Prince Valiant among them who, as an eighth grader, learned how to  press a dress shirt flawlessly, and steam and press nice pants to perfection without burning a hole in them.

And then I turned out to be a guy who could trim hair like a barber.

Yes, someone gave me a barber kit and I became the guy, upstairs or down, who gave great haircuts for three bucks. Imagine. Soon I had “customers.”

All this because my widowed mother who first taught me said, “Someday, you may have to look out for yourself.” She was right of course. SHE was always right. “One day, you may be asked to cook edible meals, do the laundry, make the beds and serve the right wine, and even wash the dishes.”

I can tell you that that “someday” may arrive like a lovable stranger on life’s crazy escalator, and after you cook for her and do the dishes and she whispers, “I think I will marry you.” Say yes. You have to. Someday is today.

J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer.