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Friday, September 29, 2006

 

Contracting out

I have exciting news: the cleaning lady starts on Monday. Isn’t that the best news you’ve heard all week?

Beloved and I are not completely in agreement on our need for a cleaning lady. To his credit, he did an admirable job keeping the place tidy (if not spotless) while he was home with the boys during the summer. He insisted we could continue to do the cleaning now that he’s teaching four days out of five, but when I found out I was pregnant it sealed the deal for me. We need a cleaning lady.

We had someone coming in for a couple of months when I first came back to work after my maternity leave with Simon, but Beloved took over the cleaning that summer when he was home and we muddled through the next year or so doing (gasp!) our own cleaning. Or not, and living with the filth.

Beloved’s argument against hiring someone was “we’re not rich,” and I do get where he’s coming from. Not that I’m overly fond of cleaning, and I certainly don’t have issues with the idea of having someone else pick up after me. Please, if I could find someone to chew my food for me I’d pay them for it these days.

We finally compromised, and she won’t be doing a full cleaning, just coming in for two hours every second week to concentrate on sanitizing the bathrooms and kitchen and do whatever else she can get around to. Frankly, aside from the additional cost, the main reason I don’t have her cleaning the whole house is that I’m worried about keeping the place tidy enough for her to clean under the clutter. (How sad is that?)

Now that I’ve gotten Beloved over this hurdle, my next goal is to convince him of the other members I’ll need to complement my personal staff: a chef, a gardener, a personal trainer, a nanny, and a masseuse. Hey, I’m worth it!

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