The Cleaning Lady Chronicles

Weedless Wednesday

Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust. This dang equipment is surely a bust!

This proves a broom is truly only as good as it's dustpan! With every swipe of the broom, half the particles get left at the ridge of the dustpan forming a nice dirt line on the floor. Only half of it makes it up and in as the rubber edge has hardened from age. I'm ready for a 'Cleaning lady' melt down at this Wednesday morning clients house. Every good cleaning lady will tell you, never eeeevvvvvvveer, take a vacuum near messy leaf dropping plants. As you suck them little babies up the hose the machines exhaust blows every other semi-loose leaf off the plant and onto the floor in their place. Maddening! Try it one day, you will see. The broom is the way to go. Especially in this five level side-split home with large overgrown greenery at every turn. They grow them like weeds in here I'm telling ya!

It's as if the homeowner thought 'Let's go jungle theme' when decorating. Bravo! Over the twenty-two year span they have lived here they most certainly achieved this! I'd call this couple 'Professional Hippy's'. Professional in their business lives and yet I get this huge hippy vibe from the kind of throw rugs scattered everywhere and the artwork on the walls and tables. With incense always burning and music choices that are from the Janis Joplin years, this certainly adds to that feel. It's the incense burning that drives me bananas. I love everything else. Well, Janis not so much. But, pretty much everything else! Love all the folk art from local artists displayed here, there and everywhere. And who doesn't like cleaning and contemplating life while listening to Simon and Garfunkel's 'Bridge Over Troubled Water.' A fairly relaxing environment for any lucky cleaning lady! Mellows you right out.

I was pre-warned Stephanie would be out for meetings instead of working from home as she usually does mid-week. Instead of Stephanie at the door, I was greeted by the heavy scent I smell here often. This time, it's a wee bit different. Overly pungent! Opening windows on a fine spring day would certainly take care of this problem, but it's the middle of the deep freeze of February and most of the windows are actually frozen shut from the moisture built up from all these plants.

There's no shortage of them that's for sure. I swear it's so thick with greenery a monkey is going to jump out at me one of these days. Which makes cleaning up all the incense ash mixed in with the leaf droppings a real big pain in the butt! They burn dozens of these darn little scented sticks jabbed in the dirt of each of the larger multi-plant planters. Hence the need for a decent dustpan! They do so love their incense.

'And why not?' I wonder, as I continue cleaning. It's not a bad smell! Breathing in deeply, I decide that after a while the scent does grow on you. So off I go with the cruddy dustpan and broom in hand to sweep up this week's ashes and leaves. By the time I'm finished I feel better from just getting it done. Washrooms, bedrooms and kitchen next, then off to dusting the rest of the house. After a half hour into the kitchen work I start to wish I had brought in my lunch. Thinking I probably won't make it till my usual lunchtime, the stale bread they have out to make homemade croutons has me wanting to nibble.

'Hands off Lady! Not Your Crouton!' is going through my head over and over again as I eye them with mouth-watering and the rest of me laughing hysterically. Seriously though, I am now contemplating what I wouldn't do for that big bag of smoky bacon potato chips they have 'hiding' in their pantry. It can't hide from me! But on to the dusting I go trying to control myself. You see, potato chips and me are like very bad lovers. The fire and intensity is damn hot and immediately satisfying, but in the end you're always left hating yourself for indulging and this always leads you straight to the ice-cream carton! No good can come of it I tell you!

Ok, dust that darn hunger away! I move in the same pattern in each room covering the surfaces I am now very familiar with from working here weekly. I feel right at home after touching these items probably more than even the homeowners have. Though, some items are highly personal and precious to just them.

Take the five urns on the mantel. Each with a different pug dog's photo beside it. I am careful as can be around things like this. Especially the heavy iron urn in the middle that doesn't have a picture near it. I'm not sure, but it just might not be pet ashes in that one. It's much different. I dust carefully looking at its intricate carvings in the sides. Swirls and swirls, like waves crashing into a shore. I reset the lid as it's a wee bit loose and we don't want any trouble spilling the contents. I don't know what kind of bad luck you get from spilling someone's ashes by accident and don't want to find out!

Readjusting it I notice some clear plastic stopping it from sealing properly. Hesitantly, I loosen the lid to push the plastic in and reseal it. That was the plan anyway. But, nosy me! Oh my! The lid opened a wee bit more than it needed to and whoa, Lord tumbling Jesus!

There in the urn, with all the usual paraphernalia of rolling papers, lighters and a small little bong like pipe was a tightly packed bag of what was not incense, but surely responsible for most of the smell in this house. Quick! Lid back on and I look around to see if anyone saw me see that! Yeah, that's what I said 'Saw me see that!' I'm darn well fried!! Most likely have been a wee bit fried every time I've come here. But this time, I am completely fried! I sit back a little frazzled wondering just how bad I am at the moment and I look around the room with eagle like eyes. Wide and zeroing in on everything I have previously not noticed camouflaged in all the greenery of the houseplants.

Pot plants growing in every multi-plant pot there was in that room. Holy Mother of Pearl. Anyone looking in the windows? I listen and look intently, worried I'd get found out that they were found out. Yes, again with weird wording in my head. But I am seriously worried here. One could almost say paranoid! Gosh darn it; I really am fried from whatever was left in their second hand smoky air! Thinking back now, it seems on the Wednesdays Steph is not here the smell is always stronger. She must smoke a big fatty before she leaves the house and then tries to mask it with the incense.

"Dang girl!" I say with a very slow drawl as my mouth now feels like it's melting.

I wander from room to room and see more and more plants that resemble the pamphlets sent home along with the stack of fundraising I loathe doing from the kids' school. The pamphlet entitled 'Initiate The Talk' sits on my counter right now as I stare at the mini 'grow op' right in arms reach. If I could actually feel my arms that is! Well, they certainly didn't have 'The Talk' here. In my state of 'being under the influence' I count at least thirty-seven plants. I was careful to not count the ones moving on me twice. Ha! But those buggers were pretty tricky. Being that I was nearly done the cleaning and now done counting and absolutely starved, I head out to my car to figure out my next move.

Gnawing on my pre-packed sandwich like a starved animal, I know full well driving was not an option. With my house three and a half blocks away and the kids' school two in the other direction, I decide to walk it home, shower and slap myself in the face a few times before I use it to face the kids in a couple hours. Don't need them giving me 'The Talk' next!

Showered, fed, and somewhat thinking straight I wonder, 'What to do, what to do, what to do about this situation?' Legal or not, and here it is not, I am completely at a loss with what to do. Then it hits me.

Three months later I'm walking my daughter around the 'Hood' with her girlfriend selling the spring Girl Guides cookies. Always making sure it's Wednesday when we fundraise door to door, we walk up to my ex-client with a full case. Sure as anything they are our best customers when selling edible items. The chocolate covered almonds for the hockey team? They bought a whole case! Chocolate bars for the new school library fund? Also a case!

Having bowed out of cleaning for them due to 'personal health issues' I now know as long as it's late afternoon on a Wednesday, we will never have difficulty fundraising again! And, with three months of Weedless Wednesday's under my belt, I'm proud to say this Cleaning Lady, is completely clean!