Sadie, The Cleaning Lady

With not-so-trusty scrubbing brush and pail of water...

Yes, i have a few issues with our cleaning lady. Her name isn't actually Sadie but i like the song so it's going to be henceforth. Now. Our cleaning lady. I'm not saying that she's not a lovely person. She was a cleaner, then a parking inspector, then she worked at the zoo and now she's a cleaner again, as she found that the most fullfilling. She obviously has the well-being, cleanliness and order of the world as her highest priority.

However, as a cleaner, she drives me insane. Perhaps because of the deadly additive to any relationship that is my mother. Her arrival on a tuesday morning is anticipated by my mother awakening me from a peaceful sleep (more recently a sleep peppered with incredibly amusing dreams, hey Noodle :P) and a mad scramble to clean the house. Yes, we clean everything up BEFORE she arrives. Plus, we're cleaning a house that is pretty much ALREADY CLEAN. Anyone who has been in my house, let alone my room, would consider it insanely neat. Well, in the eyes of my mother, it's messy at the best of times. So, before Sadie arrives i have to clean up an already immaculate room.

Once she arrives (usually just a bit late), the Dance of the Cleaning Day begins. This is a modern interpretation of ancient tribal dances from incredibly flexible civilisations - to which i have no connection. Therefore, the avoiding of any room which she deigns to 'clean' doesn't sit well with me. It's be ok if she did all of a room at once, but no. Instead she cleans half the upstairs bathroom, half the downstairs one, then the other half of upstairs and then downstairs. This if followed by half of upstairs, half of downstairs, then the other half of each and finally all of the floors. Sound semi-systematic? Well, maybe. But try being the person who has to get out of each room for her to clean it. It's like being nomadic! Every few minutes i switch rooms. Generally, i just get kicked out of the house entirely by my mother.

This too, i conceed, is reasonable for cleaning day. However, the worst is to come. As you know, everything in my room is 'just-so'. After a few years cleaning my room, this woman is yet to grasp the fact that SHE HAS TO PUT THINGS BACK WHERE THEY CAME FROM. Sound hard? Well, apparently is. Because after she's 'cleaned' everything is just that little bit wrong. All my pictures are around the wrong way, all the nick-nacks are in the wrong places, etc. Sound anal? So what. That's me, so deal :P Anway, i then have to completely re-arrange it all back to normal - only to have her mess it up again! You think she'd get the hint.

Even this wouldn't be so bad if the woman actually CLEANED! I come home to my out-of-place room and there's still dust everywhere! Cobwebs in a corner. Dirt on the carpet. Marks on the desk. Seriously. We pay this woman to clean for three hours. She spends at least half an hour/45mins chatting and having coffee and a biscuit with my mother (who generally helps her clean btw) and IS PAID FOR THIS! Then she 'cleans' for awhile and leaves. Easy money.

Plus, she broke my cow and didn't own up, put grease on the carpet (i KNOW it was her) and tried to tell mum it was me AND she took food from the fridge once, some special thing mum had made, and mum caught her. That was when mum still had a spine, so at least she didn't get away with it so much.

I'm not dissing her as a person. When i was little she got me a really great book of fairy tales for christmas (she's been our cleaner for my whole life, except when she was a parking inspector). But, as a cleaner, she totally sucks. Even I could do what she does! In fact, i WOULD do it! Three hours having tea, chatting, pretending to clean and getting paid? Sounds pretty cushy to me. Not to mention the fact that, in my mother's eyes, she can do no wrong. She's better off than me!

Stupid old Sadie.

Annie.

(Btw, this is my 152th post and that just happens to be my favourite number!! just thought i'd inform you of that :P)