Janice

This weekend left me plenty of time to think which is never ever a good thing. In any event, I began wondering how I became who I am today. What events in my youth made me crazy? Lets see...

One bizzare phase of my life centered around a woman named Janice. Janice, was a large african american woman who lived with us for a period of 4 years or so. Her official role was "house keeper", but she also served as my body guard and chef. I think I realized the raw power of Janice, when a neighbor's dog was chasing me one day. It chased me all the way to my door, when Janice suddenly appeared. Her voice boomed at the dog "What u think ur doing!!! You best be getting away from him!!! " The dog quickly retreated, as any smart animal would, and I was safe. But at the same time I had realized that I was in the care of a very frightening woman. If Janice made fishsticks, I felt compelled to eat all of them, even though that sometimes meant eating 48 in one sitting.

Janice also wore strange outfits, which only added to my fear. All those old clothes that we put in the basement to throw out or put in one of those clothing charity bins, somehow ended up on Janice. So sometimes I would see Janice walking around with one of my old winter hats from when I was 3 , you know, the kind that has the giant pom-pom on it. And she wore this hat even in the summer, making the whole thing very comical, yet disturbing.

The whole concept of having a housekeeper needs a bit of examination. First, we must distinguish between a housekeeper, and a cleaning lady. In essence, the housekeeper denotes a woman who actually lives in the house, and she is its keeper. This is strange, b/c my parents own the house, yet they have entrusted it and its keeping to an immigrant woman who wears strange hats. Also, I cannot recall if Janice had another place to go on weekends, or if she was always with us, even on the holy Sabbath. If so, what did she do on Sabbath? I know she didnt eat with us or anything, so did she just stay in our basement all day with nothing to do but play nintendo? Actually, that sounds pretty good. Another issue, is what happens when the housekeeper gets fired...where does she go? Is there some type of temporary housekeeper center for all these people untill they find another Jewish family to live with? If so, i bet that housekeeper center is very clean.

Anyway, a cleaning woman is just what the name suggests- she arrives, she cleans, she's a woman, she leaves. Kind of like a wife, except a wife doesnt leave. Some Jewish families have these cleaning woman once a week, some twice, and some everyday. There is also the "cleaning service" crew, which is usually 2 or 3 men who get out of a truck with a few giant vaccum cleaners and clean the entire house in 32 minutes. They are probably more efficient, but I'm guessing more expensive. I just wonder if non-Jews have the cleaning woman come in as well. Maybe its like bizzaro world, and they have Jewish cleaning woman only. Like maybe all our Grandmothers are secretly cleaning the houses of the non-jews, but they just don't tell us about it b/c we will feel bad. Yeahh....maybe. Have a good day.