Don't Hate Me Because I'm Getting a Cleaning Lady

I admit it.

I just can't get it up for the mommy wars.

Medicated or Natural Childbirth? My eyelids are getting heavy.

Stay at home mom vs. Working Outside the Home Mom vs. Working at Home Mom? Very heavy.

Breast or Bottle? This is the most relaxing sleep I've had in weeks.

Circumcision or Uncut? Seriously, check my vitals. I may be in a deep coma.

Moms who do reviews on their blogs vs. Those Who Don't? Flat lining.

But recently, I've learned through Twitter, which incidentally is so fucking educational, I'm sure our children will get college credit for reading it, that it is acceptable to hate women, mothers, who have cleaning ladies.

My eyelids are suddenly light as feathers and my eyes are wide open. I may never sleep again in the face of such hateful discrimination.

(OK, so I realize that I'm only showing what Neil said, even though others agreed with him. That's because I'm too lazy to find the other links, and it may in fact have been only Neil, but I am already outraged and will never admit that I am outraged over one measly comment).

As you may know, earlier this spring, I've mourned the loss of my cleaning lady. I had financial panic and also the type of megalomania that made me think that I could do the job by myself. And I did.

The only drawback seemed to be that every time that I was doing laundry, particularly folding the clothes, I'd be deep into a murder-suicide fantasy. Murder strictly in the Woody Allen in "Hannah and Her Sisters"-style because I assume my loved ones would not want to go on without me (to opt-out of the wanting to be murdered by me option, leave a comment below indicating your preference). And then I'd get all stressed out because I kept telling myself to remember to kill others first which seems like a lot of work for someone who is considering the whole mess because she's drained by folding laundry.

John has been completely unsympathetic, making comments like "you'll never get a job at the Gap" and threatening to send me a link to Martha Stewart demonstrating the fun and easy way to fold laundry which he insists will really get the kids into it. If he sends me that link, he'll be the first on my murder list.

So after watching me go all Yellow Wallpaper on the laundry for the past twelve weeks, Husbandrinka said "Screw it, let's just get someone."

The first woman met me, took a look at our cleaned-by-Marinka apartment, and instantly developed a cat allergy.

The second woman we met last week. She seemed super nice, is approximately eighty months pregnant and as I offered to show her the laundry room in the basement, said, "I don't do laundry."

Huh.

I mean, I can't blame her, but WTF? And of course I'm smiling to show that yes, I agree, laundry is beneath her and of course, we should hire someone to do the laundry only, oh, you say that you have an amiga who can do it, but couldn't she just do it herself? And she says no, because she prefers to focus on cleaning.

So please don't hate me because I have a cleaning lady. Hate her because she doesn't do laundry.

Beep? Burp.

When I first moved into my very own apartment, on the Upper East Side, no less, in the early 1990s, I couldn't figure out how to get things done. Like, how was I supposed to be at work and at the same time have the window cleaning guy come to wash my windows? Certainly I couldn't leave him in the apartment alone, because you know, he could steal my perfume and hide in my closet and dismember me later that night. Which now that I think about it, seems like a fair trade for clean windows, but I did not have this wisdom back then.

So, I solved that problem in a way that I've solved most problems in my life--I asked my parents for help and and mama said that she would stay at my apartment and guard my Soap Opera Digest and Ravioli Maker and possibly save my life.

Sadly, mama and the window guy did not hit it off. I think it was because window guy assumed that mama, since she spoke with an accent, was the cleaning lady. I'm sure the fact that she read a magazine while he worked made him think that she was a really lazy cleaning lady to boot. Mama, for her part, didn't take to the window guy because he was drunk. I can't remember now what the tell tale signs of inebriation were, but for argument's sake, let's say that it was a Budweiser can with a straw in his back pocket.

He washed all the windows except for the kitchen windows and when she asked him to do that one too, he refused. "Why?" she asked. "Because I'm tired, that's why," he said. And maybe burped.

What I love about this is that I think we've all been there. Don't want to do something--home, work, wherever because we're tired. No fancy excuse necessary. No explanation. Tired.

Which leads me to my update about my efforts to get a driver's license. I have the social security card, but still no learner's permit. I didn't even look at the DMV site this week to go over the sample questions. Why? Because I'm tired. And if you give me enough time, drunk.