One Maria Too Many

One of the good things about marrying my husband, is that he was used to having a cleaning lady come to the house every two weeks. So when he and a couple of his kids moved over to my house he kept up the habit. I called her "Mi Esposa", (my wife, in Spanish), not to her face, of course. Her name was Maria, and we hit it off famously.

When we moved to Palm Springs to a mobile home that we call "our cottage", the place was so small, we decided to only have someone come help us clean every couple of months, usually if company was about to arrive. We got a reference from a neighbor, and this woman came to our little trailer and accepted us as clients. When I asked her her name, she said, "Maria".....

So, every winter, when we're in Palm Springs, we call for Maria and her crew to come clean. They always marvel at the changes we've made, like painting, or new curtains, or lately, the new washer and dryer. When we were getting ready this time to make the change to the north, we had scheduled a cleaning day, but there were still a lot of painting and plumbing projects going on. It just didn't seem sensible to have the cleaners come when the place was in such an uproar. Doug called Maria to postpone for 2 days later. He usually does the arrangement, since he likes to practice his best Spanish with her. She answered and said that would be fine, and for some reason, asking if we would be there. Doug said, "Por supuesto!" ("Of course!", in Spanish). She'd see us on Friday.

Since the pressure was off to finish the projects, we went out to lunch. When we came back, the strong odor of something like Lysol surprised us as we opened the door. The house was clean, the bed made nicely, and the kitchen floor was mopped, ......except the 2 rooms where the projects were happening. 

"But I told her to come back in two days! Her crew must not have gotten the message!", he said. When he called Maria back, she said that she never got the message. Puzzled, and figuring it was just some sort of language misunderstanding, she agreed to come back in 2 days and finish the job. We'd pay her then.

Later in the day, we got a call from our property manager for the house in Richmond. He said the tenants were irate that "a friend of our son", who lives in the apartment downstairs, came into the house through the front door which was unlocked, evidently looked around, and then went in to the bathroom and used it. When the flushing was heard, their twin girls, who were home alone at the time, came from their room and asked what she was doing there. They told her to leave, or they would call the police.

Confused, our cleaner, Maria, left the house, and seeing son John working in the garden, she asked him if we were home. He was surprised to see her after so long, and said, "No Maria. They're living down in Palm Springs." He called us soon after, and told us he saw Maria, and that got our minds reeling.

I looked at our phone to see our last calls, and discovered that Doug had chosen "Maria Lopez cleaner", rather than "Maria Palm Springs" from the list of contacts. 

Poor, bewildered Maria! No wonder she sounded kind of hesitant to come. We imagined her, walking in the door, as usual, but finding it totally different looking from what she was used to. Before we rented it out, we totally painted and carpeted it and did new window treatments. Now it was decorated in the tenants taste, which I would love to check out, but it must have been so confusing to her. Then, I suppose she thought she might as well take a pee before getting down to work, and then was discovered by two irate teenagers! 

One lesson learned. Apologize to Maria, but make sure we have the right number.