Maids

Actually it's great to be home. Home in the ice and snow, away from all the warm weather and surfboards and bicycle paths that is Southern California. It's great to be back home in my own bed and dirty sheets. Making my  own coffee and gulping it down because I'm late for work. Yes it's great to be your own man in your own unkempt  home.

The thing about hotel rooms is you have maids. Before you leave the room you have to clean up so the maid won't think you're a slob. Then you come home at noon and the room still isn't made up. You leave again at three and by four the maid has cleaned the room. I remember I had an aunt once as a kid who had a maid. She complained to my mother that on the day the maid came she had to wake up early and clean the house so the maid wouldn't know how sloppy her family was.

I think the thing with servants:  ie gardeners, maids, chauffeurs, valets, etc. is that to pull it off you have to grow up with "help". If you grow up in a house with "help" you learn not to worry about what the servants think of you. You don't care, they are there to serve you, not the other way around. When my mother got older she had a maid and a gardener. I was visiting once and made a mess in the bathroom. I got yelled at because the maid had to pick up my towels and mop up the water I spilled on the floor. I left a bad impression on the maid.

I guess we all want outsiders to think we are better than we really are. It's like sampling the wine in front of the waiter in a fancy restaurant. As if we could really tell if the wine was lousy.