When Your Housekeeper Becomes Your Boss

We have a dear, dear, dear housekeeper. An incredibly hard worker. So sweet and dear and lovey to the dog.

I'm a little bit afraid of her.

It goes beyond the cleaning-the-house-because-the-housekeeper-is-coming that I know everyone does. Come on, admit it. You tidy before she comes, I know.

But after several conversations this past week, I realized I'm scared of her.


It started with a silly conversation, a totally petty complaint to Mike on Thursday. I've told you about the lower-carb diet, which basically leaves two options for breakfast: fruit and eggs.


Mmmmmm.... eggs.


I should get a chicken with how many eggs I eat a week. Well, I might actually need several chickens with how many eggs I eat a week.


And now that I'm working from home, I make my own eggs every morning. Cheesy eggs. With melted white American cheese. So hot, and so gooey.... omgoodness, I make good eggs.


Which makes me spoiled. Because I no longer care for the eggs I used to eat every day, quite happily: from McDonalds.


Back to the conversation with Mike. I was telling him (ok, complaining to him) that the next morning, with the housekeeper coming, I'd have to go get McDonald's eggs. (Point #1 that I'm afraid of my housekeeper: I leave the house by 7:30 a.m. so that she can have the house to herself and I don't get in her way at all. I don't want to inconvenience her.)


Mike says, "Just tell her that you want to make breakfast. She'll go to another room."


I stared at him like he had two heads. I couldn't do that. Ask her to move from cleaning one room to another because it was inconvenient for me!?!? No, no, that's just not how things work. (Point #2)

So the next morning, as I'm gathering my things to leave her in peace, we started talking. Well, more to the point, she talked at me.

First, she requested oven cleaner, because she says -- as she opens the oven, pulls out the rack, and points -- "It's dirty. It's too dirty to cook in there."

(Point #3: she makes me feel like I am a horrible housemaker.)

Then she walks into the living room and motions with her hands all around, and says, "You changed. Why you changed the way it was?"

"Oh!," I say. "The tree! The tree didn't fit with the sofa where it was, so we have to move all the furniture around to fit the big tree!" I have a big smile on my face while saying all this.

She responds: "I don't like it. You move it back after tree."

And I agreed. Because she didn't like it.

Jenelle thinks that's Point #4.

Although I'll argue that it's just smart. I like how she cleans the house. I like how much I trust her. I like how she treats Goldie (she's teaching Goldie Spanish).

So eating McDonald's once a week and moving my couch back? I'm okay with that.