So the person who normally picks up after me, does my dishes, irons my clothes, and cleans my toilets didn't show up this morning.
She sent someone else instead.
Who has now been here all of four hours ...er... cleaning?
In those four hours she has managed quite an assortment of things, but as far as I can tell cleaning is yet to be one of them.
However.
She got lost on the way from the gate to our house.
"The people, they not help me," she said as the first thing when I opened the door to her, and I smiled and shrugged and invited her in. Which she took as an invitation to enquire me about whether I had children, how old I was, and why I didn't have children.
"So you not interested in home." she finally told me after giving me a hard stare, and poured herself some of my coffee.
She then proceeded to ask me for a cher, which I provided her with in the form of a barstool, which she then piled dirty dishes on because it was in fact something completely different she had asked me for. To do with dirty dishes. But also possibly the singer herself.
I didn't interfere.
Instead, I saw my chance, escaped to upstairs, and claimed to be working. Which she took as an order to jimmy open the locked garage door and mop the concrete garage floor.
"Too many spiders. Ugh. So I clean," she informed me when I finally decided to venture downstairs, take the maid by the apron-strings, and find out why she was opening and closing the electric garage door as if it was a fun new toy.
"So what you do on Christmas day?" she engaged me as I was reaching for my keys in her hand before I could sprint back upstairs.
"Oh nothing. Just working. Here at home. We don't celebrate Christmas," I told her in the hope of making the sentence long and winded enough to carry me up the stairs.
"BUT Church?" she managed before I was even halfway up.
"Ah. Er. Uhm. We don't go to church. We're atheist," I said as I saw her fingers go to the gold cross around her neck. I couldn't move.
She looked at me thoughtfully and slowly opened her mouth: "Ah. That's why you not have children, and why you not like holidays."
An uncomfortable silence has reigned ever since.
