Maid in Brooklyn

The cleaning lady was here today and it got me thinking about what an odd relationship it is between the cleaning lady and her clients (customers?). Here is a complete stranger cleaning the most private parts of your home. She knows more about me than my closest friends and relatives. She knows everything about me right down to the type of moisturizer I use (Aveeno). Although we have spoken briefly and always exchange the perfunctory greetings when she arrives, I usually leave shortly after and let her go about my business. Other than what she encounters around my humble abode, she has no way of knowing anything about me.

I often wonder if she thinks I'm strange. She dusts everything, therefore she goes through my things. Do you think she wonders what a copy of the bible in Dutch is doing on my dresser? What about all those books on prison on my nightstand? And all that French Lavender soap? Who uses that much soap? And the fact that I leave notes requesting that my towels be rolled up and placed on the shelf in order of color going from lightest to darkest must raise her eyebrows. How the hell many Polo by Ralph Lauren shirts does a person need?* It's the same goddamn shirt in every color and plaid combination imaginable.

I wonder if she goes home and talks about her day with her husband and says, "Remember that guy in Red Hook that I talk about? In his recycling was like 50 bottles of this weird German mineral water! It just keeps getting weirder and weirder over there!"

Maybe others are even more bizarre than I am. For instance, I don't have a porn collection or any sex toys or fetish apparel, but I am sure she comes across that more often than a six month supply of Zoloft and Xanax in my top drawer (which I know she opens because the handle fell off).

*The lady that washes my clothes must be really thrown off.