Monday, January 24, 2011

oh the things you'll see behind closed doors

i've been cleaning houses for several years now and while it's totally not my ideal job, it does work for my life. it pays adequately well & has the flexibility that i need. there was a period of time where i had to take brooke to work with me frequently and that certainly made for some very long days. some of my houses take up to five hours or even longer to clean and she was 3 when i started carting her to my jobs with me. she wasn't quite old enough for me to expect her to help or i totally would have gotten some labor out of her.


she kind of liked going because most of the houses were quite large & often there was no one home, so she had the run of the house while i was occupied scrubbing and mopping or with the vacuum running so that i couldn't even hear her. for the most part she was very well behaved & she learned some valuable lessons about never snooping or peeking into the personal spaces of others. i don't know what people keep behind their cupboard doors or in their bedside drawers and i don't want her to know either. some of the houses had children & therefor toys, so she was allowed to play with those toys until i ran the vacuum through the room & declared it finished & off limits.

one day, she was with me, playing in one of the upstairs kids bedrooms. i was at the other end of the hallway cleaning a bathroom. she yelled, "mooooommm! where are yoooouuuu?" i replied, "i'm down here in the bathroom." a couple minutes later she came in & showed me whatever it was that she wanted to show me & i went on about my work.

a bit later in the morning, the man of the house came and found me, which in & of itself was rather odd. he was fairly quiet & not one to look for excuses to chat, but generally stayed out of my way.

he said, "did brooke tell you...?"

me, panicked that she'd broken something valuable, "tell me? no, she didn't tell me anything!"

him, "oh. uuuh..."

me, choking back a massive wave of anxiety. i couldn't afford to lose this job.
"what did she do?"

him, "she just came into my room."

me, "i'm so sorry, i didn't realize you were home, so i didn't tell her to stay out of there"

him, "actually, she came into my bathroom."

me, "oh my gosh, i'm so sorry!"

him, "and ... um... she... um, i mean, i was just stepping out of the shower when she walked in."

me, mouth hanging open. eyes bugging out of my head. face turning purple.

him, "i hadn't even had a chance to grab a towel yet when she walked in. so she... saw.... well... everything."

me, "BWAAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!"

him, blushing, "i just... she didn't tell you?!"

me, choking for air & trying to stop the horribly inappropriate hysteria that had taken over my head, "no, she didn't tell me anything!" gasp, heeheehee. "she didn't even act funny. i told her i was in the bathroom and i guess she thought i meant yours.... HAHAHAHAHA! i mean, i'm so sorry, i shouldn't be laughing." gulp

him, "i just wanted to tell you so that if she says anything about it at some point, you'll know what happened and the circumstances."

me, finally getting a grip on myself through a major act of self control, "thank you very much for telling me. i am so, so sorry she did that. i'll talk to her about it and it will never happen again. " snicker, snicker, giggle.

he walked away and as soon as i was alone, i collapsed against a wall & laughed the hardest i've ever laughed as silently as i could manage at the absurdity of the whole situation. i asked brooke about it and she was totally unfazed. didn't seem to have even noticed that he was flashing the full monty.

that might have been the best/worst cleaning day ever.

29 comments:

  1. I think I would have died. I think it is kind of creepy going into someone else's home especially when they are in it!

    Did they let you stay on?

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  2. Well you just stop telling that story about my better half!!! Geez, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!!! just kidding :)

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  3. HA- That is soooo hilarious! You are pretty much the coolest mom in the world to laugh so hard about that- mine would have DIED! HA That poor man was probably so mortified!

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  4. they did keep me after the nudity incident. thankfully.
    tracy, i'll try to keep it zipped after this. but not promises.
    and shalyn, i totally have to have a sense of humor. or else CRY!

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  5. Very funny! I'm picturing her as the slightly younger girl from Corrina Corrina - put that kid to work. lol.

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  6. wow - that's a funny and cringeworthy story/

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  7. I love that story.....I can just imagine the horror of the guy finding her there.

    nice to know she wasn't phased about it............

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  8. Years from now she will be telling this story in a therapy session....Lol

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  9. Good thing he came and told you. What would you have thought if she said randomly one day "Mommy I saw a naked man!" which reminds me:
    I used to work in the fitting rooms of a big store. One day after coming back from my 15 minute break some of us staff members were standing round having a chat, when little Sue-Ann, who maned the rooms while I was on break, declared "There was a naked man". We were all.. "WHAT?!"

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  10. hilarious!! must have been just traumatizing for him lol!! lol

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  11. Very funny, but obviously he had nothing worth taking notice of ... perhaps he had taken a cold shower?

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  12. Oh Lord. My little girl would have been quizzing me like crazy after that. How mortifying.

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  13. sorry should have left the cameltoe comment on this blog rather than your daughter's lol...

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  14. LMAO!
    I would so be a snooper...

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  15. Love the way you wrote this story. So funny!

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  16. I was expecting the guy to make like George Costanza in a famous "Seinfeld" episode and try to explain that it was so small because of cold water shrinkage. But I guess it would've been perverted for him to justify the size at that point. Maybe I should've kept this comment to myself!

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  17. Well, that sounds pretty darn funny to me! I cleaned houses several times, but nothing that exciting happened!

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  18. oh man-why was that guy home?!? Kids are so unphased these days. If that had been me walking in on that dude, I'd STILL be mortified at 38!

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  19. You have me laughing out loud! This is a story for the ages! I love it!

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  20. I was looking for the "like" button, but this isn't facebook! haha!

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  21. BWAHAHA! My first thought was... she must not have been impressed. ;)

    Great story!

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  22. Loved it! That poor guy...I wonder if it bothered him later that she didn't feel it was worth mentioning?

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  23. I just found your blog through Average Girl's Party blog idea! So glad I did! I laughed my buns off reading this post!

    I hope you get a chance to stop by my life of self-imposed ridiculousness. :)

    http://thefriskyvirgin.blogspot.com/

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  24. Well it's best your daughter learned early what "it" really looks like, rather than what boys will be telling her "it" looks like. Nothing says it best like 'au natural' when it's shrunken and dangling from a hot shower!
    Hilarious!

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  25. ROTFL...
    This blog is so so hilarious..
    Makes me wonder by what age we can sense the full implications of nudity...

    Me from Average Girl's party..

    www.arrangedindiamarriage.blogspot.com

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  26. You don't think he resembled a Ken doll so much that she was like, "Meh, nothing I haven't seen before."

    AWKWAAAAARD!

    http://zpnotesfromunderground.blogspot.com/

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  27. SherilinR you must be a comedian in your real life right? Fur? I can never look at my cat in the same way again...

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don't let me be the only one doing the talking around here. spill your guts!