Confessions of a Cleaning Lady

The Kindergarten Teacher

I've had the unique (or maybe not so unique, I dunno) pleasure of cleaning for a lovely woman who has taught two of my children for a culmination of three years between them. She's also taught one of Lou's kids for two years, so we know her pretty well. She's young; sweet but not too sweet, and funny. She's my kinda person. I'll call her teach.

Being a new mother of two boys 18 months apart (Yikes!), she is in need of someone to come clean her house every couple of weeks. Now granted, her house is schoolteacher-tidy and aDORable, but I get it. It just seems cleaner when someone comes and mops and scrubs the shower really well.

We chitchat and laugh together when we come to clean. She's trying to get all the little people out the door while we're getting settled in, so it's chaotic but fun all at the same time. We talk about the kids and gossip about some of the teachers, moms, and little monsters we all know.

As I get to know teach better, I like her more and more. Her family's not perfect, and it's refreshingly real. She's one of five kids in a Catholic family. Her parents are divorced, but she's close to them both.

Her father is super involved with his grandchildren, partially because he has to be and partially because he's good at parenting. Turns out one of teach's sisters has a couple of different kids with a couple of different daddies that she no longer has custody over so grandpa raises them. Much respect for real, he's also the captain of the fire department in the town over from us.

Her mother used to clean houses for money while she and her brothers and sisters were in school, so she gets it, and we've got stories to swap about that too. She's also super involved in the grandkids and is, from what I hear, a lovely human.

So cool family, cool teacher, cute kids, and everything positive in this fabulous lady's life.

Except her husband is a complete bro douchebag. And I'm not exaggerating.

It wasn't obvious at first. You know how people can be a little awkward sometimes when they first meet you? Like they talk a little too loud, or seem anxious to flee the scene because they're not sure how to keep engaged without running out of things to say? He was like that, and that made sense to me.

But alas, the more time I spend around him (and there's plenty more, I've ended up cleaning for his business too, but more on that later) the more I realize he's kind of an idiot.

So herein lies the existential question of the house of the kindergarten teacher: What the hell does she see in this guy?

It's been a common theme cropping up in many of my entries of many different houses regarding this saga of human interaction. I don't think I've encountered it the other way around yet, although I'm sure it's on its way, but it's usually the wife is cool, the husband is not.

Am I biased? Possibly, but it seems so specific to each instance. Specific behaviors that illustrate the deep contrast between the lifelong partners in this play we call life.

Teach is intelligent. She's kind and educated and well rounded. Her hubs speaks like a frat boy, and apparently still acts a little like one too, but she obviously loves him nonetheless. Their house is a shrine to that fact, there are wedding photos EVERYWHERE.

So my casual goal here is to find out more about this little arrangement. How did they meet? How long had they known each other before they got married? Who are all those white folks in their stag party photos raising red Dixie cups and making duck faces?

When she taught the first of my kids she had her maiden name, then five years later when she began teaching the last, she had her married name. What happened in between that time to convince her to marry a guy who literally calls everyone "bro"?


-TPB