MY CLEANING WOMAN

Everyone should have a cleaning person with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder).  She may clean things a bit longer than most and sees dirt where dust mites  passed by. She certainly leaves things clean before she leaves.  Even when I tell her not to wash the glass on framed pictures more than once a year (she smokes, I don't; she  fries food, I don't)  I'm told, "Oh I haven't done these for over two weeks."   There is a 'clean this' magnet on each piece of glass, mirror and TV screen. 

There is an order to the way she does things (that OCD thing again, I guess, which only an act of God could alter. I suppose having cleaned my house weekly for the past 26 years makes her feel things are familiar.  I like change so I am constantly moving things.  It is clear that she considers her taste better than mine.  Things must be balanced, I can't live with everything surrounding something else..  So after years of putting things back after she left,  I played back the echo in my mind to let her know that I really want things where I put them.  She tells me she forgets where they were and apologizes,. though  I still have to put things back when she leaves.

Some minor irritations to some become monumental to me.  I have a dispenser of orange foam soap.  I need it to deodorize my hands after handling aarghhies.  I wet them and then push the plunger for foam.  When she cleans the counter, she grabs the bottle by the plunger and locks it.  Hands no longer dry, I try to get soap but nothing happens until I dry my handsand release the lock, which means several seconds spent finding  the exact position.  By now, not only is a towel smelly but so is the top of the dispenser.  Though we have gone over this many times, it happens weekly so that she has now trained me to add checking its position when she
leaves,  as well, the shower being turned off so that when I try to adjust the temperature I am not still out of the tub when I get soaked.

One thing she moves really upsets me.  It is like plant homicide to me and putting up with it makes me an accessory.  Miss House Beautiful, our cleaning tornado, places plants where she thinks they look look better. I tell her they are living things and require the right conditions of light, no drafts, etc.  Left wondering what part of that she doesn't understand, my Polish Polisher looks surprised and says, "Oh, didn't I put them back where they were?"  or, "They look better balanced."   I tell her that I like them better alive.  I have developed a weekly mantra as I rearrange the house after she leaves with cash in hand.  Since the words I use are not generally accepted for publication, I just move everything back and celebrate that things will get dirtier.during the week but will be, at least, where I want them and I can still open drawers and closet doors.  A week later, I will have the pleasure of telling her what I would like to have her do or not do and she will do what she wishes to do.  When she leaves, the house will be spotless again for a few minutes...hours, if I'm lucky.


Since she manages to have a room look neat and clean when she leaves, I find she has pushed everything out of the way so that I no longer can open drawers, cabinets, the toaster oven, or reach my blender or coffee maker.  So far she does heavier, dirtier work than that which I do after she leaves.,   She returns, for which I am more than grateful when I hear the horror stories others tell me about their non-English speaking, light-fingered cleaning.service. 

The moral to my story is:  Not even blessings are perfect.