Your parents will turn out to be the King and Queen of a foreign country, no worries.

My day started off great.
I cleaned the restaurant, or more accurately, I tried to. Because the phone rang. And I’m just the cleaning lady.  I picked up hesitantly. My heart was beating audibly. I put the phone to my ear and started. “Hello, this is-”
RING RING RING
I had forgotten to push the green button. Now, I pushed the button and put the phone to my ear again. “Hello this is-” then I bit my tongue, I swallowed back a curse and smiled. Not that the person on the other line could see me smile, but maybe some kind of positive energy would channel through. The other person also started hesitantly, not very encouraged by the way I so very skilfully picked up the phone probably. He mumbled something and I did not quite catch his name, again, then again and only on the third time it became clear who he was and what he wanted. I somehow managed to drag the reservation forward by an hour and looked at it with incredible pride. After he asked me twice, twice, if I had truly made it happen, that there would be no mistake at all he said something which was not altogether strange. I just could not comprehend it. He said, “I’ll see you tonight.” I thought, what does he mean? I only clean the place, I’m not going to be here tonight, or any night for that matter. Right. Wait. He doesn’t know that, so he might think- ah. And this probably went through my mind in only a second, although it felt like hours but he was already saying bye so I said, “yesseeyoutonightgoodbye.” Pretty much like that. I never want to pick up the phone again.

Then I went and picked up books. The last time I went there, there was this Goddess that helped me find the book I was looking for. It wasn’t there but she tried really hard. In any case, she was there again, and in my head she is called The Mermaid, because she has this long blond flowing hair with hints of pink and she looks sweet, calm and fierce at the same time. So I stormed in and said, “Well this time the books I want will be there!” as if saying it that way would make the books magically appear. She looked at me and only recognized me after an instant which was better than anything I’d hoped for since we’d only met once. We talked a bit at the counter when I realised it was incredibly hot in there. While I’m sweating as if I was already near the fires burning in hell, she asks if I’m in a hurry. I assured her I wasn’t. I felt the desperate need to get on my knees and beg for forgiveness, crying that my sweaty, dirty appearance was not worthy of her beauty. I resisted. I escaped, wiped the sweat of my brow and started the journey home. I saw my father whizzing past me on his bicycle and I yell “dad!” and wave my arms but he doesn’t see me. Others do. I can almost hear them thinking. “Poor girl, her own father ignores her. Do you suppose he never wanted her? Oh the drama, drama everywhere, maybe she has only recently found out she actually had a father-” I felt really foolish, like the way you feel after waving to someone you think you know, but he doesn’t turn out the be that person, just a look-a-like.

Lieve, unwanted, fatherless, in awe of one of the most beautiful women ever laid eyes upon, (Which suggest there a women somewhere who are extremely beautiful but no one has ever seen them. In all likelihood they live somewhere in a cave with one or two breeding males of excellent stock so they can keep reproducing. It would be like a community where only beauty matters and if any ugly children are born they will be cast out or exiled.), the wrong kind of sweaty, and foolish.
(She will still kill for a price though.)

Babysitting fish, way worse than babysitting children, try it sometimes.

Yesterday I experienced a special kind of panic that, until then, I had experienced before, more or less, just never in the middle of the night. When babysitting I sometimes come across unprecedented situations where I just have to fight my way through it while hoping for better times to come. (Often this entails sleep.)

Yesterday night, or more accurately, around very early this morning I found myself reading a Dutch translation of Terry Pratchetts Guards! Guards! after soothing a five year old child who had woken up thanks to a nasty ear infection. My legs were asleep, I was half asleep, waiting for her parents to come home and overall there was this dull ache in my head and the thought Where am I? Who am I? For what reason do I exist? All kinds of existentialist thoughts swam through my head. (And the agonizing thought of standing up, which would be a bitch since I couldn’t feel my legs any more.)

But then, she thought, have I not gone through such a thing before? Have I not spend hours or more just sitting somewhere, waiting? Has my laziness not enabled me to sit still for at least 2,5 hours doing absolutely nothing? Waiting just for the sake of waiting, I can do this. Wait this reminds me of–

Exactly. It reminded me of the time I was babysitting fish. (BAM, plot twist)
Fish. Guppies to be precise. Or as Wikipedia calls it: Poecilia reticulata.
It started of really well, they were brought to my house I gave them food at regular intervals, all is well that ends well.
Yet at some point I walked past the fish tank, still ignorant of the imminent danger before me, when this horrible wetness spreads under my feet. The trail of water let to the fish tank, I slowly looked at up, in denial, all the while my mind was racing with possibilities such as, someone had dropped a glass of water and hadn’t bothered to clean it up or, well, anything really, then my eyes focussed and a strangled half sound, half gasp left my lips,

OhGodItReallyWasTheFishTankWhatDoIDoooooooo.

It was half empty, the guppies swimming in the last few inches of water, packed together. And there is this thing which always bothers me the most in these situations. It is the single worst thing I know and in this case it came true. They weren’t mine. The guppies weren’t mine. I would have flushed them, but what if the owners really liked them? (Which was stupid of course since no one actually likes guppies, it’s not as if they’re tropical fish with pretty colours which are worth gazing at, or gazing somewhere in the general direction of where fish is supposed to be.)
But stuff that isn’t mine, is also not mine to take, use or break, just like I don’t like others taking, using or breaking stuff that is mine.
I’m possessive that way. (Then again, I suppose no one is okay with people randomly breaking stuff that is theirs.)
So there I stand, before a slowly emptying fish tank and the first thing you do is replenish the water, filler’up. Well, that went really well. Just grand. Then all I had to do was tape the leak shut, or as it turned out, make it smaller so the water wouldn’t rush out like a torrent all at once. Satisfied I looked at my work. Only the fish were starting to float. Which I, with all my knowledge of fish, found slightly disturbing since I had this vague notion they only came floating up once they were dead. Now when I look back, I think I had the most genius inspiration ever. I am proud of how quick I worked once I realised that the guppies were only paralysed due to the sudden change of climate. (My spray of cold water in an attempt to save them.)
I take paralysed fish over dead fish that aren’t mine and aren’t supposed to be dead any minute, especially since death is such a permanent thing. So I scooped the paralysed fish out of the tank with my bare hands, put them in a box with water, lukewarm, put some plants in it, for the oxygen and yes, that is as far as my fish knowledge will take me, and behold! the fish started swimming. I saved them all. I conquered the Death of Fish. It was a good day. I told the owners about my deed, the quickness of my wit, my extensive knowledge which I had applied extremely well under dire circumstances. I had no great expectations of a reward other than the bar of chocolate they had already given me.

But you know what they said?

“You could have flushed them, because, we’re in a bit of a bind you see? We can’t flush them while they are alive since that is just setting the wrong example for the children, but we don’t really want them. Nobody wants them. So we were waiting for them to die, but they just keep on reproducing. We need the space the fish tank occupies right now. Well. Thanks anyway.”
They left shaking their heads, wondering if I was pretending to be stupid or if I really was as dimwitted as this.
That is when I realised that: “Do you want to take care of our fish while we are on vacation.” actually means: “Please get rid of our fish while we are on vacation and tell the children they died of natural causes.”

In the end they gave the guppies to a nearby school which uses them to teach children responsibility and that every life is precious. Oh, the irony.

– Lieve, your clean-up service. She flushes guppies through the toilet like no one did before. She is the Death of Guppies, Killer of Innocent, Peace Loving Fish. She will murder, but only for a price.

l’argent

You know that you’ve passed the point of no return when you find yourself whispering, quietly even though no one is around: “shine my precious tiles, shine!” while cleaning. (the tiles obviously)
I have passed that point faster than I can stuff pieces of meat in my mouth and although admittedly not a pretty sight, I can do it with the speed of lightning.
Now that I have started to talk to the cleaning tools, such as the vacuum cleaner (please, stop making so much noise! Isn’t there anyone who can invent a vacuum cleaner that doesn’t make any noise, and if it exists, why don’t I have one?) to the mop, (you are so dirty, such a dirty, dirty mop. I feel like nothing ever gets clean when I use you ‘cuz you’re so dirty. I’m going to clean the mop which I clean other stuff with and then it will be a never ending cycle of cleaning. Yes, mop you are going to get a bath, aren’t you, yes you are, yes you are!) and to the water and the rag, (Oh my, you are scalding hot, Mr. Rag, please get me some cold water. Why not? You can’t get there by yourself? Don’t be such a pussy.) I realize that I might have gotten slightly too much into this whole cleaning business. It is too late to turn back though, it earns me money, and money is great. Just like meat and people in cars who take pity on people like me on bicycles. But that is for another time.

 

So, I’ve been watching firefly since someone recommended it to me and I kind of like it. I spend the first day of 2014 watching firefly behind my laptop instead of getting on with my essay about subjectivity in Pirandello’s One, No One and One Hundred Thousand. I have been avoiding it during the Christmas holidays so I’m going to finish it. Tomorrow. Somehow, probably in bed since I am really tired. Can’t really see where it’s coming from though, it’s not like I have been up unusually late. I am going to bed. I’ll probably write more engaging posts later. When the inspiration strikes.