anonymous crank

I return to the apartment I was cleaning yesterday and I am starting to feel sheepish about being so judgmental. I tackle the kitchen today and it is four hard hours of scrubbing and fumes and I’m only half way done. If. A migraine starts to brew. I hope I am wrong. I am waiting for it to pop. I just can’t do those heavy cleaners. As I mop up the huge spills in the fridge, the mould, the muck…I start to become very concerned about this client’s health. I think of how little she is and how devastating botulism could be on someone so small.images-1

And that’s when I stop worrying about how much I’m getting paid and I start taking pride in my work.

Before I leave, still unfinished, I write her a little personal note and assure her I will be back to make it lovely comfortable and clean for her and I wish her a good weekend and arrange her pillows fetchingly on the sofa.

At home I get in the shower and wash off the grime, the blood from my cut up hands, and then file down my four broken nails. Beside me is a small cup of warm water and salt I soak my infected thumb in. It’s looking a bit black. I wonder if that’s a bad thing.

I chuckle. I see my friend Jenn has chided me on Facebook, gently, for not respecting the privacy of this client, despite the fact the client is completely anonymous, even to me. It’s the idea of the thing. And Jen is absolutely right. This is what urbanity gives us? We can be horridly mean to people we don’t even know? “It’s a red light you f’ing moron! Are you blind?!”  And so forth. Hm. I wonder if all that anonymous crankiness adds up? And I wonder how long it takes to scrub it off?

I stick my thumb into my salt water like little Jack Horner does with pie. I decide to be kinder to strangers. “What a good boy am I”.images

 

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