Egad! Check this out:
The other day I decided my beloved cleaning lady, Luz, has gotta go. While she was here slamming around, I sat down to the dining-room table to grab a fast lunchoid. That ingested, I suddenly felt very tired — hadn’t slept well the night before.
So there I am sitting at the table, where I fold my arms in front of me and lay my head down. Not really expecting to fall asleep, mind you — certainly not with a vacuum cleaner roaring around the house — but just to rest the very tired eyes.
Yeah: I do fall asleep. And…holeee mackerel! Have you EVER met anyone who can make trouble just by dozing off after lunch? Well…now you have! Online, but here she is….
While I’m sitting there snoozing, Luz takes out her camera and snaps a picture of me and the wine bottle. What she gets is a photo of a woman who looks flat-out, zonkered-out DRUNK, passed out on the dining-room table.
This, she emails to my son! No comment: just the damning photo.
Upshot: he thinks exactly what you would expect him to think: Mom has been sitting there swizzling wine until she has passed out snockered.
He and I get into a very nasty exchange, one for which I have not yet and may never forgive him.
But speaking of forgiveness, one thing Luz ain’t getting is any of that!
I haven’t called her to fire her yet, but I will. Today, I expect.
Hoped to find a new house-cleaner first, but I haven’t been ambitious enough to launch into that kind of search.
I’ll tellya, I do hate cleaning house! And so resent (very much!) having to fire the woman. Sure don’t want to do the job myself. And just now don’t know where to turn to find a new house-cleaner.
But…egad!
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o-h-h-k-a-a-y…
Search online for someplace to hire such a person, and you discover the prices for cleaning a house are now just phenomenal!
Lookit this! TWO HUNDRED BUCKS to clean a 1500-square-foot shack???!!?? Actually, no: that’s $164 to $350 for an average-sized house.
Surprising that Luz doesn’t know this. I pay her $80 a hit.
Hmmmm……
Well… Guess I’ll just have to sit her down and have a little chat about professional behavior on the job. Whatever caused her to do such a stupid (vindictive??) thing, she’s still a bargain on four wheels!
Hmmmmm….not to repeat onself. I wonder why Luz doesn’t seem to know she’s vastly undercharging a going market.
O’course,, there’s only one of her. If you hired a service you’d get at least two people in the house; probably more like four. The job would be done faster. And their employer presumably would have insurance. None of those apply when hiring the standard cleaning lady.
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On the other hand…hmmm… At 80 bucks a hit, I pay Luz $320 a month.
BUT…I do get four cleaning visits a month. Looks like what these formally organized outfits are charging would be more like $800 a month if they came in weekly. Wow!
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Well… I guess I’ll keep my mouth shut. Just have to be a whole lot more careful around her. And don’t even think about taking a nap while she’s here. Or eating dinner, either….