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A Good Clean Fight
By Gretel Killeen

My fifty-two-year-old cleaner arrived late the other morning. (There, it's out; yes I have a cleaner, God forgive me I'm not a superwoman but, take note, she's not a very good cleaner.) Anyway, like all good guilt-ridden daughters of houseworkflayed mothers, I'd gotten up early to clean my house before the cleaner came. I'd made the lunches, ironed the unlforms, done the hair, force-fed the breakfasts, dressed the kids and was ready to leave. Well, we waited and waited and waited and waited until finally the cleaner waltzed in and giggled: "I've just had the most enormous spliff and I'm really, really stoned." I think I got spoilt by domestic help in Bali. Yes I enjoyed the sun, the sea, the blah blahi blah, but more than anything else, I enjoyed; no, found fabulous ; no, became compulsively, obsessively addicted to having people at my beck and call, obeying my every whim. In just six days l learnt to see the world from the perspective of one of my kids. Finding Domestic Help Bliss is like buying your first fitted bra, hailing a cab driver who's heard of your destination, or discovering a pain killer that really works. Two men, two women, working shifts, doing nothing unless I ordered it. In the end, I found myself searching for jobs to keep them busy and saying things to the kids like: "Go outside and play in the dirt and then come and walk through the house." I've always been shocking at getting help around the house. Like most women I'm too generous, too understanding and absolutely begging to be fleeced. Who can forget the builder who came to construct a garden wall, charged three times his quote, took two years to complete the job and, on the very last day, reversed his truck into the new wall and then tried to sue me for damages? Or the live-in babysitter who was so thick I used to pay for her to take little day trips just so she'd be safely away from the kids? Or what about the cleaner with "difficulties at home" who used to sit at my kitchen table sobbing into her hanky while I cleaned the house myself for three hours and then paid her 45 bucks (actually I often paid her 50 because I felt too stingy asking for change). Thanks a lot, Women's Lib. In the old days I would have raised the kids, done the cooking, shopping, cleaning bumpf and gone stark, raving mad. Now I do all that and go to work as well! Of course, I try to think of timesavers, for example wearing Velcro on the soles of my shoes so I can collect the lint balls from the carpet while I dust, but it's difficult to motivate oneself towards project time management when you think the project is a waste of time anyway. "What's the point in ironing," I have been heard to say. "As soon as you've done it it's wrinkly again." (A theory which I may point out can also be applied to sex.) My preferred option would be to leave the housework untouched and undone until the kids are grown. I've tried ropingthe children in to do their share, but they won't have a bar of it. "Zeke, it's your responsibility to clean up the mess because you made the mess in the fir St place." "No Mum, actually the mess is your responsibility, because you're the one who wants it tidied up." What a conundrum: working woman, feral children, two hands, 24 hours, selfish need to occasionally sleep. I need an assistant. I need a slave. Basically, I need a wife. Actually I'd prefer to have a man about the house, but I'm sure that if I ever found a man who was at all capable of doing anything useful I would immediately find him tremendously attractive and end up in a relationship. At which point he would stop doing things around the house and I'd end up waiting on him. And besides, I don't need a bloke all the time, I just think sometimes it would be nice. He could deal with the car mechanic and get called "sweetheart", he could talk to the bank that said a loan would be easier if I went and got married, or the man at customs who took me aside because I " looked suspicious travelling alone with two kids" ; or even the prominent life insurance company which wanted to charge me a 50 per cent loading because of the dangerous nature of my work. "But I'm a writer and I sit at my desk and my desk is not on a fault line." "No, that's not what we have a problem with," he said. "It's the single mother bit!" Actually, according to all the information I can glean on this issue, I don't need a bloke at all, I just need different products. Oh yes, apparently I'm using the wrong face cream. I've got to find out what hosiery, snail killer, margarine and other products those perfect women use and then really lash out on them. Meanwhile, I pop home to pay the cleaning lady. The house hasn't been touched. I ask if she's done the cleaning and she says yes, she was very thorough, and presents me with one extremely bright and shiny pot. She holds it in awe and then says with pride: "And if you look underneath, you can see your face." Fabulous, maybe I just need what she uses. GreteI Killeen, Written for The AUSTRALIAN MAGAZINE,, November 1-2, 1997.

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