The Cleaner.

Mothermouse decides we need a cleaner. But that’s not easy. First off we must not appear disgusting and second we must appear so franticly busy doing other things we just don’t have time. God forbid we should come across as lazy arses happily living in the Woodseats equivalent of a bush-tucker trial. This is made worse by not being able to find whatever is incubating flies in the kitchen. I can only assume some deceased cat present is lurking behind something, but luckily she didn’t find it. Anyway appearing frantically busy isn’t easy. It has to be something selfless, socially useful. Like origami won’t cut it unless it’s a three story hanging basket for charity. I mean there’s something deeply disgusting about appearing to live a dissolute Downton life style in a Sheffield suburban semi. So we power dress, which for us, seeing as it’s ten in the morning, means losing the dressing gowns asap. But preparations for her arrival began days before. Off to Sainsbury’s to purchase what cleaning products we should have if we actually did clean. Anxiety rises as we tackle a steep learning curve and do a frantic pre-clean the evening before her arrival. She arrives with a vacuum cleaner the size of a Russian tank and spurns our old mop as worn out and my new Vax steam cleaner as a homosexual’s knick-knack. “In my cauntree we owenly yuzeh sulphuric aceed and petrol driven apylances” she tells us; beads of Slovakian sweat dripping from her face. I can hear my unconscious translating this as, “The Inglis, they live like lazy pig dogs.” I feel my mouth opening to explain, via a hastily fashioned blatant lie, that, but for the depression caused by our heartfelt concerns over the plight of Mongolian orphans, we’d be as spit-spot as Mary Poppins. I calm down and rationalise that if it wasn’t for us dispensing our largess she and her three fatherless children would be out on the street, possibly in Mongolia, and that it’s only the laziness of the hapless rich that allows the industry of the less fortunate to bear fruit. I wash my own cup up and, feeling I’ve done my bit, decide to run out to Chatsworth to buy a piece of meat for the weekend.