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Our cleaner hasn't been round for almost three weeks
now. He usually comes by every Thursday, but since the
Great Floods a few weeks ago we haven't heard a peep.
Of course, we're hoping he hasn't been washed away,
but also playing on our minds right now is the fact
that our kitchen hasn't been cleaned for 18 days and
we're running out of plates.
My bathroom mat is the worst thing of all. Two Friday's
ago I found myself a little worse-for-wear after an
all-day session at Spectrum On One, and bought myself
the usual 3am pie from 24/Seven round the corner. Somehow,
between finishing the pie and falling into bed, I managed
to coat the bathroom rug in a fine layer of flaky pastry.
Worryingly, the majority of flakes are at the top end,
adjacent to the toilet. Now, I'd hate for anyone to
judge me, or make any lewd loo-based meat chewing assumptions,
but every day since then I've been forced to re-trace
those forgotten steps, drawing a frustrating blank every
time. And it's not very nice.
Had the cleaner been round and sucked up my sins with
the hoover, I'd have long since regained my dignity
and probably had a few more late night pies. But as
it is, the whole thing's ruined for me. And my rug looks
bloody terrible.
Also annoying are the hairballs that have started floating
down the corridor, between mine and the flatmate's bedrooms
and the lounge. I'm not sure which are hers and which
are mine, but each delicate tumbleweed is a tragic reminder
of how bad things could get if he never comes back at
all. What if they all join up together in the corner
of the living room and block the telly? What if one
huge hairball collects beside the fridge and we accidentally
cook it up with our dinner, and choke, and wind up in
hospital, and our families have to fly over and identify
our remains after the autopsies reveal nothing but intestines,
filled with our own, matted hair?
Quite sadly, we don't have the cleaner's phone number.
He was but a weekly blessing arranged for us by the
previous tenant - a fairy in flip flops with an enviable
flair for cushion arrangements. We can't get in touch
because although he's been cleaning apartments in our
building for a while, nobody seems to know who he is,
or indeed, where he comes from.
I'm well aware that this new woe would not have factored
into my previous, London existence. I never had a cleaner
there and neither did anyone I knew. I never needed
one and never did I think that I could ever come to
rely on one. How worrying it is that I am only realising
now - whilst watching floating hairballs in horror and
tentatively washing a fork on my own - how much I might
have changed.
The doorman said he would arrange a new cleaner for
us this morning, which took a load off our minds. Tension's
been mounting and cutlery's running low - neither of
us can remember how to use a broom and we can't go out
onto the balcony to fetch the mop because the floor
is so disgusting now that our feet would turn black
in the process. I'm sure the new guy will do a marvelous
job and we can resume our usual carefree pattern of
existence, but we'll always wonder what became of the
cleaning man who never was.
Posted: 30 Jan 2008
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