I have been working so hard these past few months have been a blurry haze to me. Office work, house work - both. I have always felt ashamed to be 'young' and healthy and able-bodied but to be hiring a maid to wash my clothes, clean my room, wash my floors, cook me food. ..so I don't, much to the chagrin of most of my friends who believe a maid is one of the basic necessities of life.
'Hired helps are cheap, so why not?' they say, and sometimes I ask myself the same question. But the thing is, I just don't want to. And I know no maid will clean or cook as well as I do :-) I'm painful that way because when it comes to work - of any kind , there's no one I trust more than myself. So there. That's why I am maid-less to this day. And probably will be for the rest of my life - or as long as I'm able.
But the flip side of all this is when life gets too hectic, and I work my ass off, and I go home and even if all I want is something as simple as a nice cup of tea, I have to do it all myself - on any normal working day. We do get to go on nice trips and vacations, but when vacations are over and you're back, tired from long trips, and there is dusting and unpacking and suitcase full of laundry to be done - and who else to do them but yourself? So even taking vacations are not all that restful, the aftermath is just too tiresome.
I was bemoaning my fate to a very sympathetic friend one night. "I wrack my brain trying to think of ways to make my clients happy, to make my family or friends happy, to make their lives easier, all the running arounds I do for them but there's no one trying to make my life better!" (Selfish selfish I know, but still...I can lament a bit can't I?).
My friend, caring and loving as he was, was alarmed to see me like that because I am most of the time annoyingly chirpy. "Tell me what you want me to do for you and I'll do it!" he said. I said there was nothing. "What do you want? I'll get it for you" he offered. Men always think 'buying' is the solution to everything. He immediately thought what I wanted was something to be bought, something available in a store...But the thing is, if buying something was to make me that happy, if it was that simple, I would buy it myself. And even if someone buying me something would make me happy, it's just not that special when they do it because you asked for it. I want something that's unasked for, even if it's just a cup of tea.
As sweet as the sentiment was, it just made me unfairly angry with him. I know I have wonderful people in my life who genuinely love me and care for me. But sometimes I think they all think I'm Super Woman - made of steel. But I want some pampering sometimes. Have you heard of Kenny Roger's 'Buy Me a Rose' - that would pretty much sum up what I'm trying to say, just without the romantic connotation.
He thinks she wants a three car garage
Her own credit cards
If he could only read her mind
She'd say -
Buy me a rose,
Call me from work,
Open a door for me,
What would it hurt
Show me you love me
By the look in your eyes
These are the little things
I need the most in my life...
Or maybe I should just focus more on what I have. When I went away last week without telling anyone, and most of the time keeping my phone locked in my hotel room, Superman on my last day finally called a friend of mine who happened to be sitting right next to me at the time so I took the call. He yelled at me - "Why did you go away like that without saying anything!? Where is your phone? Why were all my calls unanswered? Not answering emails, never present online! I have been worried sick!" But to know that I was alive more or less satisfied him. Maybe that's as good as buying me an unasked-for rose?
Maybe not :(
22 comments:
oh god.. i know what u mean.. and i really admire u for being maid-less. that's one thing about singapore that i crib about even today. we both are so bone tired during weekdays and then saturday goes in cleaning and mopping and the laundry (even though we have a machine to wash). its tiring and i keep thinking back to the 400rs per month maid we had who made life so much easier.
i do wish you get not one but many un-asked for roses (all from one person!) :)
I tell my friends I'd marry a guy who loves to cook and they say "Marry a chef" grrrrrr....Chefs don't like to cook at home because they cook all day at work...
Anyways... Maids don't really clean anything in a proper way. I have seen them clean the floor. Instead of scrubbing the dirts off the floor, they paint the floor with water!
nags - And I know what you mean about weekends spent dusting and scrubbing and all that. But at least I'm thankful that after a hard day's work of toiling on a Saturday, you get to get dolled up and go out and have super fun almost every weekend :) And I hope you have AC there in your place, I can't imagine working so hard in Singapore where it seemed to me that the heat and the humid always made me tired.
And thanks for the rose wish! :) I wish too haha
lucy - and chefs would hate to cook at home, and being experts, nothing our amateur selfs whip up would be able to live up to their expert taste - so NO chef!
Well, it seems those who care do have to yell sometimes.
Hired help is something i'm stubbornly refusing to get too, to the great annoyance of my family. But earlier experiences tells me i'm better off without one, even though the house ends up messy and i have to come home from work and first wash the morning's dirty dishes before i can make a cup of tea.
Ah yes! The vacation aftermath is the hardest for me too...especially long vacations. When it comes to cleaning a two storey apartment...I'm tempted to hire a maid the cost of which is pretty reasonable(they're paid by hours here). But somehow, I still can't get used to the idea of a stranger coming in and cleaning every nook and corner of my apartment.
Oh my God you sounds so much like someone close to me :). I enjoy the lines.. Men always think 'buying'. Oh btw a need to buy 1 too, rose :)
We've mostly always had hired help around the house so I've grown somewhat dependent on them for housework despite the fact that I don't really like having strangers around. But having said that, for the last several months we've gone without a maid and cleaning the house every morning without fail is tough especially when you're no longer very young and fit, and have a dozen other things waiting to get done.
And I can relate to your grouse pretty well. I have times too when I crave a little TLC and pampering, and no questions or recriminations spoken. I also find that times when I feel that way it's because I'm a little tired and rundown. Maybe your holiday took a bigger toll on you physically than you realised and you need a holiday after your holiday. Yeah, sounds funny but it's been known to happen. Just a little gyaan there ;)
huh! getting a maid to help is an equally painless thing! trust me.. i had a maid who wud not come in for atleast 7-8 days and then i would not be home for another 7 days and i used to pay her for the entire month and also do all the washing and cleaning myself for almost one half of the month! its better to not have a maid than to have one and do everything yourself! :)
" tih-huk" lamte tih tawh mai chi em ni aw ? :-D
mesjay - hahah I so know what you mean. Lazy days I take the luxury of not doing dishes, only to wake up the next day faced with a sink full of dirty dishes. I hate going into the kitchen on such mornings!
jinx - Yeah, I just don't like the idea of a stranger going through my things, and sorting my "very organised mess" :-) I understand my mess, I think life would be chaotic to try to sort through a mess I didn't create myself.
vana - Well, I'm glad that at least someone will be getting a rose because of my post :) Especially if she is someone like me!
J - Goof gyaan though :-) You're right about the tlc-craving coming at certain times, I've settled in - major part of bad laundry and other chores done, and that my room is now sparkling once again, who needs a rose?! hehe
rohini - It seems no one trusts the hired help anymore. Sad considering the fact that that's what they do for a living, and doing it in such a way that no one trusts them to do their "core jobs" anymore!
Seki - buaina tibelh chhah mai mai ang tih a hlauhawm alawm le! Tihi chuan han thinrim ve viau mah ila, pasal te em an nih loh chuan an ngaihdam mai theih a, pasal te laka han thinrim vel leh expectation sang rilru hah vel tur khaa...ka rap! lol
hey sunshine!!! even the sun hides its face at times ..:) and Man!! do i know about peeps taking you to be a suppawoman with no needs....luckily my hubs has learnt a lot over the years and yes now i do get a lillium and gerberras every now and then ... for no reason whatsoever and it feels like wearing a silk lingerie..:)) my point is.."men can be taught" hehhehehe life10
We went maid-less for a while once... it used to be fun to go sweeping, moping around the house... then as our weekend activities increased and some housemates refused to share the moping responsibilities, we outsourced it... I still wash my clothes and we still cook... there is a certain satisfaction in doing it yourself and a certain frustration in being too tired/busy to do it sometimes!! LOL
life - How nice to see you! Seems like you just went and disappeared for ages :)
lillium and gerberras? Lucky lucky you! Sigh - some men I've come to believe will never learn even after 10 lifetimes.
Vik - I think washing floors would be the first thing I outsource if I ever decide to - washing my clothes and cooking being the last on the list, even though I absolutely HATE washing clothes!
oh gosh! I just had to laugh a little first after I read this. Girl... I KNOW how it feels. SO here's an online rose for you. I do have to confess that I am totally dependent on the maid to take care of my laundry, and that much-deserved cuppa tea. My room though, is usually off-limits, which leaves it looking like a cyclone-hit area most weekdays.
I have a maid who comes in the morning and does all the work. But I still manage to mess everything up before sundown.
Maybe I am just a little lazy ;)
Understand what you said - I would certainly be very happy if I got an unasked rose! But I couldn't be angry if I didn't get it either. I don't know, guess we are all little dodos who don't always do the right thing at the right time :)
Maybe we shud get you a nice BF who wud get u roses... (or would u feel that u asked for that as well?!)
Hmmm, i shud just try not to act as the problem solver here :)
Anyway i kinda understand how u feel. I think its more of family that we are all missing... the little help-each-other-out thing we always take for granted when at home....
Cherrie - haha why am I not surprised that you'd be one of those that would know how this feels? And thanks for the online rose :)
mojo jojo - I can get pretty messy too, which is okay, as long as the dirty part doesn't come in. And as for the unasked for rose, I think the degree to which they matter to a man and a woman is slightly different, so that would be why it doens't bother you much (you're a guy right? :P)
apate - I wouldn't mind anything, as long as they start sourcing unasked for roses :) But yeah, you're right, I think it's more of a family thing than anything else..
I remember an old flame(hahaha....for some reason I hate to say "My ex") who asked me if I wanted a rose (duh!) that a florist tried to sell him. But of course, I said no :(
PS: My sister made me a dress! I'll put it up on my blog. Check it out.
No. I am a chimp.
To be totally honest, I would like an unasked-for banana better :P
lucy - I hate the 'my ex' thing too :) And no wonder he became an old flame - askers are losers, most of the time...I checked out your blog, still to see the dress!
mojojo - Normally, I am not all that fond of chimps, but you're an eloquent chimp, and if I saw you, you just might get thta unasked for banana!
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