Even though we’ve had the same cleaner for years, we pay a little extra each year for a service that a) gets good cleaners with references (Ashley came from there) and b) provides replacements for us when Ashley’s away.
This is, in general, a good thing, but not when I open the door at 8:10am with my noise cancelling headphones on (so can’t hear a bean from the world) and find a sweet young lady called Anna, who’s probably been waiting for five minutes for me to emerge. Lord only knows what she thought I was up to (answer: doing some work on the new home pc, but that’s just sad).
If only Homeclean had called to tell us she was coming: it was remarkable that one of us was home (I only was a) for geek new computer reasons and b) because working on the new machine is a dream with a 17in screen (aside: my colleague Stephanie said “I’ve never seen one that large” when she saw the new PC. Joyous.)
But then I think: maybe Homeclean did call, but left a message on my home phone, which neither of us check or answer any more, because it’s always spam or near spam calls.