the case of the risque housekeeper . . .
A good deed gone terribly awry!
By Zanie Ann Wilder, Staff Writer
My most embarrassing moment ever began like many ordinary moments do… as a good deed. But somewhere along, the way it went horribly awry. After many years away, my married daughter recently moved back to the state in which her dad and I lived and I wanted to demonstrate to her how helpful it was to live so close to her family. So after she finished her last semester of grad school and got her first professional job in a nearby town, she and her husband moved out of the tiny little ground floor apartment where they had been living. As any good mother would do, I volunteered to clean her apartment so she could get her full deposit back. Maybe my motives weren’t entirely altruistic on that blistering hot July day, because the Heavens did not smile down on me.
I must here note that I am a simple country girl. I am not used to cities or even living where I can see my nearest neighbor from my own front door. So this huge apartment complex in a metropolis where strangers hovered just outside the door was bit intimidating to me. Accordingly, I determined to lock myself securely in her apartment and work my fingers to the bone.
My first surprise of the day was evident when I arrived. Her apartment was HOT. She had turned the A/C to 85 degrees to save paying utilities in two places. (My daughter is wonderfully frugal like that.) To further complicate matters, the thermostat was a complex programmable jobbie that I could not even begin to figure out. Soon my eyes were stinging from all the sweat pouring off my brow. I decided to simply strip down to my underwear and keep working. After all, no one was there to see me in all my glory. She had a sliding glass patio door in the main area which faced a huge lake that was lower than the apartment by several feet, making it entirely secluded. But, just to be safe I drew all the shades and spent a few hours cleaning every nook and cranny of that little place till every possible surface gleamed.
Since it was barely past noon, and I wasn’t dead yet, I decided as a final gesture, I would follow the scout ethic of leaving a place in better condition than I found it. I had noticed the patio doors were pretty dirty, so I carefully checked again to be sure no one could possibly see me, and proceeded to clean the inside surface thoroughly. Unfortunately, they still looked filthy. I carefully unlocked them going out onto the tiny private patio, scrubbing first one door then the other until not a streak could be found. My tactic worked; now both doors sparkled like the rest of the apartment. I felt justifiably proud of my efforts on my daughter’s behalf.
I guess perhaps city dwellers are more concerned about security than their country counterparts, because unlike my patio doors at home, these doors have an automatic bar that falls into place against the movable door if you jostle it too hard. It seemed my well-intentioned, vigorous scrubbing had done exactly that. When I attempted to open the door, it wouldn’t budge! Shocked, I found myself locked outside. Once I remembered to breathe again, attempting to calm down, I began praying for a miracle. I had never prayed so hard that a stupid door would open, as I did for the next half hour. Finally, I resigned myself that there would be no miraculous parting of the red sea that day. I sat there on the scalding concrete and considered my options. As I saw it, I had exactly four:
1. I could run down to the beautifully manicured lake and try to find a rock large enough to fling thru the patio door and pretend it had been done by a burglar. At least I would have my clothes back on before the police showed up. Unfortunately, large rocks are not as plentiful in the big city as they are at home. I would rather pay a $30. Lock-out fee than shell out for a new door. If I was fortunate enough to survive this day without my family having to know about this recent escapade, I certainly didn’t want to blow it by having to explain a broken patio door to them. If I had to pay to replace the glass in this evil door, all the sordid details were bound to come to light; I would never hear the end of it.
2. I could sit here for another 10+ hours, waiting for my daughter to get off work and wonder why I was not back at her new house. But worrying about her mom’s whereabouts was probably not something that would occur to her, until I did not show up at bedtime. Besides, with the way the way my luck was running that day, it would be my new son-in-law who came to check on me. It was not a trauma I wanted to inflict on either of us. It would probably be one he would never recover from— I really like him—so that option was definitely out.
3. I could run as fast as I could to the manager’s office at the other end of the complex, nearly ¾ of a mile away, and pray that they had a blanket to hide my shining, glorious birthday suit—all too visible under my sheer granny panties and bra. Plus, I could only hope that even though my name was not on my daughters’ lease, they would believe me and let me into her apartment long enough to get my clothes on, before calling the police to haul me away for a psych eval.
Now, I know what you are probably thinking—that with a bra and granny panties on, even sheer as they were, I was certainly more fully-covered than the twiggy, bikini-clad girls you see at a typical public pool. But alas, I am not one to let it all hang out for the whole world to see. Mainly, because after giving birth to several large babies, I could never be called anything akin to “twiggy.” I wasn’t even sure I could overcome my mortification if I was spotted sprinting—or more accurately fast shuffling—up the street to the clubhouse where the manager’s office was housed. Additionally, it had been years since I had actually run anywhere, so I had to consider the possibility that I could have a heart attack on the way to the office. I could just envision the paramedic’s response to that scenario. If I actually made it there without passing out, they would probably have me arrested for indecent exposure.
As I continued melting in the burning sun, pondering my predicament, something else occurred to me that swayed my decision away from option #3 irrevocably. Shorts and shirt were not the only things I had locked in that blessed apartment. My shoes were securely locked in there as well! As my mind caught hold of that fact, it instantly visualized the bubbly hot asphalt street. Great! Not only would I be half dressed, half dead, and completely traumatized by the time I reached my destination, my feet would probably suffer second degree burns to boot (pun intended).
4. The fourth option came to me as I heard someone opening and shutting their apartment door. A-ha, I could slither around the corner, skulking in the shadows of my daughter’s doorway alcove, waiting to accost someone coming home for a late lunch and beg for a towel to cover myself (or at least part of me), while they called the office for lock-out service. Even though it left me more exposed to prying eyes than option #1, breaking the glass, it would certainly be less expensive.
This option would one added benefit; sparing parts of my body, which had not the seen daylight since before I could remember, from the effects of the burning sun.
Option #4 had the additional inducement of sparing me from having to hobble around on blistered feet for an indefinite period of time, lying to people who would ask how I managed to burn only the bottoms of them.
Finally, determining, my only prudent course of action would be to haul my plus-size rear, in all its nearly naked glory, over the unusually tall deck railing, and dropping to the ground below. I would then creep around the building, into the hallway to await an unwitting rescuer. However, par for the course, I misjudged the height of the railing along with the subsequent drop. After landing and wrenching my ankle, I thudded heavily onto my above mentioned derriere. On the bright side, I survived and didn’t roll down the hill into the lake, a fact for which I was truly grateful. I decided to look at this as good omen that my trial was coming to an end. I even made it all the way to the alcove without being seen. Hallelujah!
I felt like a spider eagerly anticipating its next hapless victim. Not a great feeling. It was an unlikely, blend of terror, excitement and boredom. It seemed to take hours, as I huddled like a criminal. I filled the time by justifying the logic of talking to strangers, while clad only my underwear and slinking in the shadows of a public hallway. My one consolation was after today, I would probably never, ever have to see these people again. I would just be someone’s amusing “crazy neighbor” antidote. UGH! What an uplifting thought that was! But trust me. In this situation, it was the only way I could muster the courage to do what needed to be done. Now, if someone would actually walk by soon, and if that someone were a female, I would count it a great blessing.
Finally, I heard a car pull up and footsteps hurrying my way. My immediate thought was that someone had called the police. Heart racing, I peered around the corner, cringing, almost losing my nerve right then and there. Instead of the woman I had prayed so fervently for, it was a young Pakistani man. Swallowing what was left of my pride and desperate for rescue, I sprang into action.
“Sir . . . sir. Excuse me sir,” I pleaded in my most persuasive voice. “Can you please help me?”
As he paused with his foot on the bottom stair and looked my way, I quickly told him I needed to have him call the manager, because I was locked out of my daughter’s apartment. He turned towards me, starting down the hall narrowing the distance between us. In abject horror, I pleaded with him to stay where he was, explaining that I was not fully dressed. Flabbergasted, he stopped dead in his tracks. Whirling around, stumbling to the stairs, he mumbled something in a language I couldn’t comprehend, and flew up to his apartment. I was not even sure if he understood what I had said.
All I could think was, “That’s just ducky! Someone finally comes by, and he doesn’t even speak English! I will probably still be standing here when my daughter gets off work tonight.”
But soon he came back down the stairs, complete with wife and two small children in tow, carrying a towel and a phone. Though still quite mortified, I was incredibly relieved.
After his wife dialed the number and sympathetically handed me the phone, I persuaded the manager to come immediately. Probably due, in large part, to morbid curiosity at the outrageous story I conveyed, she—yes, thankfully she—arrived mere minutes later to investigate the situation. Once she quit gawking at me and her lips quit twitching with thinly disguised amusement, she unlocked the door. After satisfying herself that my clothes truly were inside, and I probably wasn’t fabricating a wild story to gain unauthorized access to some stranger’s apartment, she took pity on me, even waiving the lockout fee. For this, I was again relieved, as there would be no paper trail bearing witness to all I had just endured.
My final act, before I left that apartment forever, was to walk over and kick the patio door for being such a trouble-maker.
Finally, fully clothed, I returned the towel and thanked the sweet couple who had mercifully taken pity on the crazy half-dressed lady in the hallway. I imagined this was an afternoon they would not soon forget!
Needless to say, no one, who will ever see me again, knows about the craziness of that hot July day. I can honestly say, since this experience, even at home in the country, where I still cannot see my nearest neighbor, I will never again clean anything without being properly attired. I have learned my lesson well!
It’s wonderful to be able to laugh at myself now that my most embarrassing moment ever, I sincerely hope, is well behind me.
I must here note that I am a simple country girl. I am not used to cities or even living where I can see my nearest neighbor from my own front door. So this huge apartment complex in a metropolis where strangers hovered just outside the door was bit intimidating to me. Accordingly, I determined to lock myself securely in her apartment and work my fingers to the bone.
My first surprise of the day was evident when I arrived. Her apartment was HOT. She had turned the A/C to 85 degrees to save paying utilities in two places. (My daughter is wonderfully frugal like that.) To further complicate matters, the thermostat was a complex programmable jobbie that I could not even begin to figure out. Soon my eyes were stinging from all the sweat pouring off my brow. I decided to simply strip down to my underwear and keep working. After all, no one was there to see me in all my glory. She had a sliding glass patio door in the main area which faced a huge lake that was lower than the apartment by several feet, making it entirely secluded. But, just to be safe I drew all the shades and spent a few hours cleaning every nook and cranny of that little place till every possible surface gleamed.
Since it was barely past noon, and I wasn’t dead yet, I decided as a final gesture, I would follow the scout ethic of leaving a place in better condition than I found it. I had noticed the patio doors were pretty dirty, so I carefully checked again to be sure no one could possibly see me, and proceeded to clean the inside surface thoroughly. Unfortunately, they still looked filthy. I carefully unlocked them going out onto the tiny private patio, scrubbing first one door then the other until not a streak could be found. My tactic worked; now both doors sparkled like the rest of the apartment. I felt justifiably proud of my efforts on my daughter’s behalf.
I guess perhaps city dwellers are more concerned about security than their country counterparts, because unlike my patio doors at home, these doors have an automatic bar that falls into place against the movable door if you jostle it too hard. It seemed my well-intentioned, vigorous scrubbing had done exactly that. When I attempted to open the door, it wouldn’t budge! Shocked, I found myself locked outside. Once I remembered to breathe again, attempting to calm down, I began praying for a miracle. I had never prayed so hard that a stupid door would open, as I did for the next half hour. Finally, I resigned myself that there would be no miraculous parting of the red sea that day. I sat there on the scalding concrete and considered my options. As I saw it, I had exactly four:
1. I could run down to the beautifully manicured lake and try to find a rock large enough to fling thru the patio door and pretend it had been done by a burglar. At least I would have my clothes back on before the police showed up. Unfortunately, large rocks are not as plentiful in the big city as they are at home. I would rather pay a $30. Lock-out fee than shell out for a new door. If I was fortunate enough to survive this day without my family having to know about this recent escapade, I certainly didn’t want to blow it by having to explain a broken patio door to them. If I had to pay to replace the glass in this evil door, all the sordid details were bound to come to light; I would never hear the end of it.
2. I could sit here for another 10+ hours, waiting for my daughter to get off work and wonder why I was not back at her new house. But worrying about her mom’s whereabouts was probably not something that would occur to her, until I did not show up at bedtime. Besides, with the way the way my luck was running that day, it would be my new son-in-law who came to check on me. It was not a trauma I wanted to inflict on either of us. It would probably be one he would never recover from— I really like him—so that option was definitely out.
3. I could run as fast as I could to the manager’s office at the other end of the complex, nearly ¾ of a mile away, and pray that they had a blanket to hide my shining, glorious birthday suit—all too visible under my sheer granny panties and bra. Plus, I could only hope that even though my name was not on my daughters’ lease, they would believe me and let me into her apartment long enough to get my clothes on, before calling the police to haul me away for a psych eval.
Now, I know what you are probably thinking—that with a bra and granny panties on, even sheer as they were, I was certainly more fully-covered than the twiggy, bikini-clad girls you see at a typical public pool. But alas, I am not one to let it all hang out for the whole world to see. Mainly, because after giving birth to several large babies, I could never be called anything akin to “twiggy.” I wasn’t even sure I could overcome my mortification if I was spotted sprinting—or more accurately fast shuffling—up the street to the clubhouse where the manager’s office was housed. Additionally, it had been years since I had actually run anywhere, so I had to consider the possibility that I could have a heart attack on the way to the office. I could just envision the paramedic’s response to that scenario. If I actually made it there without passing out, they would probably have me arrested for indecent exposure.
As I continued melting in the burning sun, pondering my predicament, something else occurred to me that swayed my decision away from option #3 irrevocably. Shorts and shirt were not the only things I had locked in that blessed apartment. My shoes were securely locked in there as well! As my mind caught hold of that fact, it instantly visualized the bubbly hot asphalt street. Great! Not only would I be half dressed, half dead, and completely traumatized by the time I reached my destination, my feet would probably suffer second degree burns to boot (pun intended).
4. The fourth option came to me as I heard someone opening and shutting their apartment door. A-ha, I could slither around the corner, skulking in the shadows of my daughter’s doorway alcove, waiting to accost someone coming home for a late lunch and beg for a towel to cover myself (or at least part of me), while they called the office for lock-out service. Even though it left me more exposed to prying eyes than option #1, breaking the glass, it would certainly be less expensive.
This option would one added benefit; sparing parts of my body, which had not the seen daylight since before I could remember, from the effects of the burning sun.
Option #4 had the additional inducement of sparing me from having to hobble around on blistered feet for an indefinite period of time, lying to people who would ask how I managed to burn only the bottoms of them.
Finally, determining, my only prudent course of action would be to haul my plus-size rear, in all its nearly naked glory, over the unusually tall deck railing, and dropping to the ground below. I would then creep around the building, into the hallway to await an unwitting rescuer. However, par for the course, I misjudged the height of the railing along with the subsequent drop. After landing and wrenching my ankle, I thudded heavily onto my above mentioned derriere. On the bright side, I survived and didn’t roll down the hill into the lake, a fact for which I was truly grateful. I decided to look at this as good omen that my trial was coming to an end. I even made it all the way to the alcove without being seen. Hallelujah!
I felt like a spider eagerly anticipating its next hapless victim. Not a great feeling. It was an unlikely, blend of terror, excitement and boredom. It seemed to take hours, as I huddled like a criminal. I filled the time by justifying the logic of talking to strangers, while clad only my underwear and slinking in the shadows of a public hallway. My one consolation was after today, I would probably never, ever have to see these people again. I would just be someone’s amusing “crazy neighbor” antidote. UGH! What an uplifting thought that was! But trust me. In this situation, it was the only way I could muster the courage to do what needed to be done. Now, if someone would actually walk by soon, and if that someone were a female, I would count it a great blessing.
Finally, I heard a car pull up and footsteps hurrying my way. My immediate thought was that someone had called the police. Heart racing, I peered around the corner, cringing, almost losing my nerve right then and there. Instead of the woman I had prayed so fervently for, it was a young Pakistani man. Swallowing what was left of my pride and desperate for rescue, I sprang into action.
“Sir . . . sir. Excuse me sir,” I pleaded in my most persuasive voice. “Can you please help me?”
As he paused with his foot on the bottom stair and looked my way, I quickly told him I needed to have him call the manager, because I was locked out of my daughter’s apartment. He turned towards me, starting down the hall narrowing the distance between us. In abject horror, I pleaded with him to stay where he was, explaining that I was not fully dressed. Flabbergasted, he stopped dead in his tracks. Whirling around, stumbling to the stairs, he mumbled something in a language I couldn’t comprehend, and flew up to his apartment. I was not even sure if he understood what I had said.
All I could think was, “That’s just ducky! Someone finally comes by, and he doesn’t even speak English! I will probably still be standing here when my daughter gets off work tonight.”
But soon he came back down the stairs, complete with wife and two small children in tow, carrying a towel and a phone. Though still quite mortified, I was incredibly relieved.
After his wife dialed the number and sympathetically handed me the phone, I persuaded the manager to come immediately. Probably due, in large part, to morbid curiosity at the outrageous story I conveyed, she—yes, thankfully she—arrived mere minutes later to investigate the situation. Once she quit gawking at me and her lips quit twitching with thinly disguised amusement, she unlocked the door. After satisfying herself that my clothes truly were inside, and I probably wasn’t fabricating a wild story to gain unauthorized access to some stranger’s apartment, she took pity on me, even waiving the lockout fee. For this, I was again relieved, as there would be no paper trail bearing witness to all I had just endured.
My final act, before I left that apartment forever, was to walk over and kick the patio door for being such a trouble-maker.
Finally, fully clothed, I returned the towel and thanked the sweet couple who had mercifully taken pity on the crazy half-dressed lady in the hallway. I imagined this was an afternoon they would not soon forget!
Needless to say, no one, who will ever see me again, knows about the craziness of that hot July day. I can honestly say, since this experience, even at home in the country, where I still cannot see my nearest neighbor, I will never again clean anything without being properly attired. I have learned my lesson well!
It’s wonderful to be able to laugh at myself now that my most embarrassing moment ever, I sincerely hope, is well behind me.
Copyright © 2014 by Rent's Due Publications
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or performance of any kind, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, click a button on any page to send email with details of the request.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or performance of any kind, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, click a button on any page to send email with details of the request.
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