The Cleaning Chorus

At present, I'm hiding from my cleaning lady, Lulu, and her children. I hate to say it but I can recognize the deliciousness of this predicament even as I shrink into my blankets. Lulu and her children are to be known as The Clean Family- they are a package set, three for the price of one. They come every Tuesday and Friday (how much mess can we make in three days?) and proceed to bang about, scuffing up each wooden plank and ceramic tile. Don't get me wrong- Lulu gets down. She mops, she soaks, she soaps, she twirls, she polishes, she sharpens. But her kids stomp and storm and hurricane and whirling dervish like they've waited the entirety of their lives for this new yuppie playground and by god, they will enjoy every minute of it. While they thrash around like dancing torpedos, I hide under my feather comforter, Patty snoring across from me. In my fantasies, I man up. I stroll into the kitchen in a fur coat, cigarello dangling from my lips, and blueprint of the property in my back pocket. I sip my coffee confidently and stride about, careless of their presence in my somewhat limited space. And yet, I never do this. Instead, I slip into the snow with Patty at my heels, and slip even more quietly back into the front door. I give the dog her requisite chicken treat and pad upstairs to my room, cursing the vacuum's raspy hum and the sky's colorless color. I hear everything just outside: the telephone poles crackling, the washer cycling, the little boy hastily pounding his nintendo upstairs. I could enter The Cleaning Chorus and make some rumblings of my own but I'm not there yet. For now, I remain yuppified, the polite white girl who reaches delicately for a piece of fruit before retreating to a cave of her own design- a cavewoman without fire or fight.