Cleaning Ladies Are Counter Productive

Theres not many things I intensely dislike in this world. Other than doritos, the jokes on popsicle sticks, and male scarf wearers, all of which are tremendous embarrassments to the progress of humankind, I cannot not think of a single thing that I could verbally clean house on.

I use the words "clean house" for a reason. Being that this post is about cleaning ladies, you would think that "cleaning house" is their bread and butter. Or in most cases, their nacho's and sour cream*

sorry if that's racist. though it kind of has to be, otherwise it takes away from the "this is real life" aspect of everything. If I didn't make that slightly racist comment, the shiny-ness effect wouldn't be there anymore. and then there wouldn't be all shiny coins on the floor. and then i wouldn't be able to pick them up and horde them in my cave of jew gold.

see? what goes around comes around. now all we need is timbaland and his really low voice.

thats enough sidetracking for now. to begin this epically awful misuse of windex and dust pans, I will give you a brief history of my experience with the species known as "the cleaning people." At first it was terrific. Then it was decent. Then it was just a nightmare on Thatch Pond

Billy B  (1993-2003ish)

Billy B was the man. When I was like 3-5 years old, he would play this sweet game where he would trap us in the corner and we would have to escape his monstrous wrath. According to my mother j woww, Billy B was the best cleaning person of all time ever. What a legend.

Billy B was rather old (by the time he left he was at least in his 70s), but you would never be able to tell. In addition to noting the superior athletic abilities of his race, he loved to brag about how "black don't crack," meaning that african-americans age in a much less noticeable manner.

Billy B was also the VERY first guest at my barmitzvah. Mad props. He used to do this roller skating dance thing at the Roxy back in the day, and he was quite adroit at busting a move. Needless to say, he showed up all us less talented dancers.*

*Not really fair. He's black and we're jewish. You ever see anyone named Alan Bergenstein on so you think you can dance?

**They should have a new show called "So you think you can be an accountant?" We'd clean up on that shi'ite

Anyways, Billy B retired somewhere around the time when Blink 182 broke up, and moved to Georgia. We have not heard from him for awhile, so if he is in a better place, may he rest in peace. Though Billy B wouldn't want to rest in peace. He'd want to party.

Maria (2003-2005ish)

I don't remember much about Maria, but apparently she was pretty good. I don't think her cleaning was as spot on as Billy B's, but she was never a nuisance. For instance, if I was on the computer, she would never obnoxiously clean the monitor while I was playing snood (yes, some people actually have the nerve to interrupt snood. Or worse, the helicopter game.) Though she definitely didn't enhance the household atmosphere, she was no buzz killington either. Overall, I'd rank her at a solid B+

Maria left for reasons I don't really remember, but apparently it was a really emotional goodbye and she and my mom starting crying. Oh, the things women do.

I'm not really sure where she is now, though she definitely is a big fan of christiano ronaldo and will be really pissed if david villa's triangle goatee advances to the next round.

2005-2006 was kind of like that period in Russian history after Krushchev died, and they didn't really have a solid leader for a few years. Nothing important really happened, so theres really no point in talking about it

The Reign of Terror (2007-Present)

I never really understood how truly lucky I was before my fateful junior year, when the Dolores Umbridge Inquistorial squad of cleaners invaded my house and ransacked sense of belonging in the world. There's just too much to say here, so i'm just going to revert to one story, which I think sums up their entire essence quite well.

Last summer, I returned from work one August afternoon, ready to relax by the pool, take a nap, or engage in some activity that allowed me to clear my mind and potentially practice occlumency against the black eyed peas, because the song "I got a feeling" was being more overplayed than Tyler Perry's House of Pain.

Little did I know, I was about to walk into a house of pain. As I drove up the driveway, my heart sank faster than the speed of love. The van of doom was parked in the driveway. Needless to say, it was also parked in my spot.

As I jammed my car into this little alcove thingy on the side of my driveway, I couldn't help thinking how stupid I was. Of course the cleaning ladies were coming today. I spent about a half hour before work cleaning my room so that the cleaning ladies could clean it.

Yep, I just said that. I clean my room so we could pay money for a service to do the exact same thing to my room that I just did. Wise use of money. Might as well take that money and light it on fire.

I walked into the house, only to find one of the members of the sweeping squad in the entrance hallway thingy whose official house name I am not actually sure of. Dancing around her vaccuuming (which was louder than the WOW! THATS A LOW PRICE! guy), I slipped off  my shoes. Because she pretended not to notice me, I had to do a really tricky dodge move to avoid bumping into her. At the very last moment however, she unexplicably decided to pull on the vaccuum wire, causing me to trip and roll my ankle.

This was clearly a red card, but they obviously payed off the ref to that they could have their full squad.

Boy, did they have their full squad. There was someone in EVERY ROOM. I couldn't even go to the bathroom. In my own house.

Immensely frustrated, the only option was to leave. I walked onto my deck to find j woww, her college roommate, and her college roommates son, who were both staying with us. They recently moved from Syracuse to Taiwaan (yep, Taiwaan), and were coming back to the states to check out some schools for the son, Anthony.

Anthony was also clearly upset with the invasion. Judging from the look on his face, it seemed as if we were native americans being forcibly removed from our land for no reason other than to completely ruin it.

Even though the reign of terror swarms every room in the house, they somehow manage to take about 90 minutes to "clean." I am putting clean in quotes to imply that they actually don't clean. Instead, they usually break the air-conditioning, somehow mess up our wireless internet connection, and misplace nearly every personal belonging not safely tucked away in a secret closet.

Being that we were in exile, I decided to take Anthony to the driving range. I was in a pretty bad mood, and let him know about how much I despised that group of fantastik-wielding who constantly infringed upon my pursuit of happiness. I was so out of sorts that when we got to the driving range (about 15 mintues away), I had realized that I had forgotten both sets of clubs. I briefly considered attempting to play golf with the invisible set of clubs I had, but then I figured that would probably raise some eyebrows from the wrong kinds of people. I then hastily backed out of the parking lot to return home and get the clubs.

CRASH


Knowing that the word "crash" all capitalized and in large font was definitely not a good thing, I hopped out of my car to figure out what the mcfreak just happened.

In the middle of the gravely, uneven parking lot that is in more need of repair than the script to "Land of the Lost," there happened to be a big old pole without padding.

I thought I had trained up my subaru forrester well, but it was clear that it could not take a punch. One of the back taillights were completely shattered, and the back bumperish part of the car was more bruised than that Jacks Mannequin song.

Pole 1, Car 0.

Anthony thought I was the worst driver on in north america, and it cost mad money to fix. The worst part of the whole thing was due to the fallout from the incident, I was not able to attend a party that night. Normally it wouldn't be a big deal, but this party was hosted by none other than the Tsunami Blocker, an individual whose name I will not reveal because I feel like he probably wouldn't want it out there that he had a rager. Though he does block Tsunamis. Anyway, the Tsunami blocker is one of my best friends, and to this day, I have still never dranken with him. That was our one shot, our one opportunity. And through the overdone soap suds, I let it slip. Truly a crime.

I never would have went to the driving range if it wasn't for the cleaning ladies. Fate fell short this time.

The terror squad comes once a week. Since I have returned home from school, I have made it my mission to avoid my house at all costs during those fateful 90 minutes.

Lance 1, Cleaning Ladies 0. Bring it on: Mopped and Loaded


Song of the day:

This song came onto my i-pod today and put me in one of those really good moods where you are just really happy, and aren't sure why, but all you know is that this song always makes you happy. That didn't make sense, but its not supposed to.

If Work Permits, the format