Good deed

No good deed goes unpunished, they say. The other day I went to pick up my uniforms from the laundry. The Iraqi behind the counter handed them over and we signed the receipt. I said thanks and he mumbled something in return. I turned to leave, then turned back and said "Shukran", thank you, in Iraqi. This made the clerk break out in a big smile, and he started chattering at me, and gesturing at me to walk behind the counter and into the racks of uniforms.

I'm wondering what this guy has in mind, when he started showing me a bunch of other soldiers' uniforms. If you are familiar with "The Band of Brothers," you may recall the scene where the soldier went to pick up his laundry, and the woman asked him if he knew the soldiers who had not picked up uniforms from her laundry. In that case, the soldiers were dead. In my case, the soldiers had dropped off laundry at a different drop off point that later shut down. They forwarded the uniforms to the other point and were trying to get rid of them. I ended up walking out of there with my uniforms, and one for another soldier. Luckily the service is free so I didn't have to pay for the other guy.