The Cleaning Lady: Part II– But is it Really Clean?

So, my second new cleaning lady actually quit the job before she even started, she said, because she got a full time job. Ok, bravo. Glad we could help you.

So, I have continued to resort to my own special rub and scrub talents, which, while it’s not my favorite way to spend a Saturday after working 50 hour weeks, it’s not the worst either. Call me crazy, but it’s kinda therapeutic. (Alright, maybe I shouldn’t have dumped the shrink but it’s a hell of a lot cheaper. BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO)

So meanwhile, Bella gets asked to clean her room as well as her bathroom. NOTE TO ALL PARENTS WITH CHILDREN UNDER 5: Do NOT, under any circumstances, I repeat DO NOT have your cleaning lady clean their room. Make your kid do it. This is the most valuable advice you will ever get from any parent to another. Forget about all those pre-school applications. Forget about reading, forget about building blocks, coloring, and ABC’s. Cleaning their room is the most important skill they will ever learn as a 5 year old. Because, if Vilma cleans forever, they grow up with this sense of entitlement there is never any cleaning in the home to be done by them. And if, in the unlikely event, the cleaning lady resigns, and through a series of happenstance you can NOT replace her for anything, and you expect your very capable teen age daughter to

pitch in which then results in major arguments and name calling (“You are a SLOB”, “You think I’m YOUR MAID”), you realize this could have all been avoided, if at a very young age, this very child was taught, that cleaning their room is like brushing their teeth. No can clean, then no internet access, no hours on the phone, and no hours on Facebook (another bane of my existence and at this point I’d rather her smoke pot than spend the useless hours of name calling and back stabbing and what ever else one does while communicating inane thoughts through the internet…hmmmm, maybe I should go back to therapy).

So, after said argument and name calling, the bathroom floor was vacuumed which resulted in me saying, ok, now wipe up all the sticky stuff that is encrusted on your floor from that bottle of Clearasil that broke and is now the flypaper working to catch all your long hairs, lipstick pencil shavings, and that which can not be mentioned in one big pile of crap on your tile. GET ON MY KNEES? LIKE A SERVANT? You are ASKING ME TO GET ON MY KNEES? Well this huge bathroom is about 5 x 5 and could have been cleaned by the time the words got out of her mouth. YES, SLAVE, ON YOUR KNEES. Which resulted in much door banging and clanging and muttered curses under breaths.

After some time, Bella decided to take pride in her work, and showed me her newly dusted and vacuumed room, with the bed made, and the clothes put away. WOW, is this really YOUR room? She just smiled and walked out. And since I promised to fix her frozen computer, I sat down at her desk, and found, and found the chewed up lollypop stick which had been sitting there for four days, along with other various pieces of schmutz.

Yes, I definitely need a new shrink.