I’ve not been around much lately, not that the few readers I have left would notice, but it’s been a crazy month. I bought a new house and I’m also in the process of prepping my old one for sale. All it needs is a good cleaning and the waiting begins.
Cleaning…key word here . Therein lies my dilemma.
I like art. The real stuff, the kitschy stuff. Expensive works and five dollar posters in expensive frames. And that goes for objects d’art, too. My style is very eclectic and somehow, it all works. So when I started packing, I noticed several damaged pieces. For example, two sizeable chips in a Baccarat crystal oblisk. I don’t include the brand name to brag or be pretentious,, but merely to prove the value of the kind of things I’m finding damaged. There were other items too…to many to include here, but all damage was at the hands of a human. Most of the things were too heavy for my dog or cats to have caused and in some cases I’d find shards of the broken item neatly piled behind it in an attempt to hide it. I adore my furry children and I’m certain they could be members of animal Mensa if one existed, even if their little brains could conceive the idea which is absurd even for me to contemplate, it’s impossible for two paws with dew claws to, pile shards of broken crystal or porcelain, then try to hide it behind the broken object.
I didn’t have many guests over at my other home, so for many weeks on end, I was there all the time and my housekeeper was there once a week. Just the two of us. And I assure you, I wasn’t passing time juggling Baccarat oblisk.
So, I met family for lunch today and when I got home, I found a rare, delicate shell on a crystal base, broken with pieces of the shell shoved inside what was left of the shell. It was stunning at one time, and yeah, a bit pricey.
I placed it earlier this week, on the bathroom counter in all its loveliness and my housekeeper came Wednesday and she’s the only other person who’s been in my home in a week.
She only speaks Spanish and is semi-literate. But my Spanish….especially after a couple of drinks is very good, so “the” conversation began. I told her I was going to ask her a very serious question and that her answer had to be honest. I tried to explain to her that response could be a career decision. Hard to translate that. Anyway, she denied everything at first, then I started citing specific examples and she hemmed and hawed then finally confessed and said yes, she’d damaged things.
I asked her why she didn’t tell me. She said was scared to tell me because she knew what she broke was expensive. I then asked her how she could, in all good consciousness, break valuable things, my things, things that I worked long and hard to buy, things that meant something to me, yet not say a word and take home a paycheck?
She said because she wanted the money. I blew up. The top of my head is imbedded in an 18 foot ceiling. Damn, now I gotta hire someone new to clean that. But seriously, I was livid.
Now, I will admit, I paid her very well, treated her like a queen. Remnants of Liberal guilt perhaps. I gave her new clothes, a designer bag….TV, a clothes dryer, jewelry for Christmas. I’ve helped members of her family and friends and acquaintances…..all undocumented, but kids were involved and well, I couldn’t help BUT help and the help they needed was immediate and they literally didn’t have the time to wait for illegal alien bureaucratic assistance.
Her last words to me that no matter how or why this went down, it was worse for her because she “needed the money” and I was lucky because ” I have money”.
Hhhhhmmmmm….I don’t remember hiring Bernie Sanders.
Her audacity was appalling. Fucking entitlement and worse, I was responsible for creating most of it. What was left of my cranium bounced off a soon to be replaced ugly ass rustic ceiling fan.
Another troubling factoid—this woman is completely sucked in by the Hispanic division of a well-known company that sells everything from soap to make-up to plows. It’s also a well known scam and, a pyramid scheme that’s somehow allowed to remain in operation. She would mop with a headset on listening to their tripe, learning their mindset: how to sell and make money and be liberated from debt and heartache. I heard a little of the schpiel and I swear it was nothing short of a Spanish version of “Arbeit macht frei”, a German phrase meaning “work sets you free”. The slogan is known for appearing on the entrance of Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. And she believes this crap, hook, line and el sinker.
So, with this in mind and knowing she lied to me and basically stole from me, I told her I should take her to court to recover losses, but that I wouldn’t because her obvious ignorance about everything was punishment enough.
We started texting by then and I stared at the sentence and felt it to be almost cruel, but I guess I didn’t feel that bad about it. CLICK. It was sent. I don’t feel bad about it, mainly because it’s true. And she’s also deceitful. Not because she’s Hispanic—or semi literate….don’t even start that crap. It’s because she’s not the trustworthy and honest woman I thought she was. She saw nothing wrong in breaking things, hiding it and taking a paycheck. No guilt, no remorse…only when she got caught and only then after forcing her to face her mistakes. . She obviously missed this company’s mandatory lectures on integrity. Apparently, you need to pay for courses on how to think like this company needs you to think. She showed me a brochure once. All I could think of was Jim Jones and his Guyana cyanide-laced KoolAid death fest.
She isn’t a dumb woman, but clearly, not very bright either.
Finally, she managed to eek out a single gracias which read as if it took great effort and with that, our three- year relationship ended. She’s now free to peddle her monkey juice wears to other gullible people who like her, only care about not giving a damn about anyone but themselves.
So here I am, two weeks into a house that was/is rife with problems….now this. I’m rapidly losing faith in my fellow man, my ability to trust people and doubting my own judgment. I’m combatting my own idiocy daily. THAT’S my real dilemma.
Ah well. Just another costly, costly life lesson learned while permanently enrolled at the University of Laurieland.
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