Alright, so when I first came to California I was staying on my brothers couch. Danny and Mike (my cousin Danny lives with) agreed to let me stay two weeks on their couch while I looked for a job and a place to stay. About a week and a half of discouraging job searching then my dad gave me a call saying that if I wanted to I could come clean up a job he'd been doing for this French lady. He said I would like her because she has been all around the world and was french blah blah blah...
So since I am desperate for money AND bored out of my mind I go over there the next morning to clean up. The french lady who I will call gramma (because she is old and she doesn't think she is) and she seems real nice. She lives in this condo right by Lake Mission Viejo. Dad had installed a tub for her in her upstairs bathroom and so my job was to clean up the sheet rock dust and crap that had built up.
When I was finishing up then dad told me how she had offered to let him move in downstairs for 900 dollars and he said I should move in instead (he already had a place up the street from there ). He said it jokingly since 900 dollars is WAY out of my price range but it got me thinking. What if I offered her 500 and then cleaned her house for here to make up for the rest. She had already been complaining about her current house cleaner not doing a good job, and she seemed to be happy with my cleaning. So when she came in to see how things were coming along then dad told her "hey you should have Amy move in here" (or something to that effect) and then it all went uphill from there....just to come to a peak less than a week later and then drop speedily downhill.
I moved in with Gramma about a week later. I was excited to have my own room at last! I was sick of staying on a couch and using dannys shower and keeping all my shit in my car.
Things were fine for about. . . the first two days.
The first things she nagged me about were reasonable sane things like dont put dishes in the sink, they can break and keep the door to the garage shut because it makes the house cold and turn off the bathroom light because the bulbs are expensive and she didnt want them to burn out or something like that. Now all these things are reasonable and make sense and I had no problem complying with these rules and didnt think anything of it. Thing is, SHE would always do these things and blame me. Now I am not 82 years old and I can remember the last time I went in the garage and I can remember that I made sure I shut the door and I hadnt eaten at the house so I surely didnt put dishes in the sink etc etc.
Nevertheless I was still blamed for these things and it was explained to me each time it happened why exactly these things shouldnt happen blah blah blah.
Then the garage started acting up and that was "my fault" even though I had only parked in the garage once and it was already open and she was standing there when I did it.
Then the TV in her room stopped working and since I had put it on a music channel while I was cleaning earlier that day ( she had suggested I do that and even turned it on, I simply changed the channel) I mustve ruined it somehow.
Once she asked me to install her new keyboard and mouse on her computer which I know how to do since I have done it before. The only thing I unplugged to do this was her scanner which I immediately plugged back in. Somehow sometime a antivirus got downloaded on her computer. It might've been when I downloaded the keyboard but she had a friend of hers over for the last two days messing with her modem and hooking up a router that didnt work because it was so old. He could have easily downloaded it too. Anyway this antivirus thing was preventing her computer from hooking up to the Internet so my Danny came over and uninstalled it and it worked great after that (well lets hope so)
Oh and She thinks I cant clean.
Everywhere Gramma goes she leaves a trail of crumbs. She is always eating Graham crackers and the crumbs get everywhere. They just puff from her mouth when she talks. And she spills stuff on a regular basis. Coffee grinds and sugar are always on the counter. So when I clean I usually wipe of the crumbs with a wet rag and then spray a all purpose cleaner of some sort (in this case 409 since thats all she had in the all purpose field and it says "works great in the kitchen" on it) to disinfect and get the rest of the gunk off. Anyway when Gramma realized this she was like " oh no you cant use that! you cant use 409 on granite, it will ruin it (seriously gramma, its granite) and why are you using a rag?! you must use these wipes to clean it and then this marble polish" These wipes that she gives me are old and dried out and they come in a canister like the Armor All wipes you use in your car. The package says stainless steel wipes and you are supposed to use them on grills and ovens. So I humor the old lady and use them, but of course they dont clean so while she is not looking I wipe the counter with a rag with cleaner like a normal person would.
Later she goes through the kitchen and knit picks. I expect it from her now. I clean her house and do all the things she tells me and then when Im finished I go in my room and wait for about 15 mins until I hear her yell "Ammmyyyyy!!!! Could you come here? I need to show you something." Its usually something stupid but on occasion I do forget some important stuff like last week I forgot to scrub the toilet bowl in her bathroom ( which had no ring or anything but I still would have done it I just forgot) the only reason she noticed is because she didnt see the toilet bowl cleaner among my cleaning supplies.
Last week she became very upset because I didnt pull out the cushions on her couch and wipe them down with microfiber wipes that she has somewhere in her cleaning supplies in the garage.
When I apologized and told her I would for sure remember them next time and just as soon as she was done watching TV I would clean them, blah blah blah, kissing ass. She was all exasperated and I told her I was sorry again but I was glad she told me so I would remember to do it next time. She calmed down a bit then told me she sometimes forgets I am so young and unsophisticated and I must've never done much cleaning except helping my mother around the house so she'll just be patient and help me learn how to clean properly. Ugh I wanted to throw a pillow and her nasty old face... but I didnt....dammit.
As the days go by more and more things go wrong and there are more and more problems that are my fault. A while ago I ran the hot water out. The water heater we have here is really old and thats why I can run the hot water out by having a 20 min shower. So when her old decrepit water heater started leaking on Saturday she told my dad that "Amy ran it out of hot water and thats why its acting up". Maybe running all the hot water out can ruin a old water heater...who knows but its really ridiculous.
I only have recieved one paycheck from Cheesecake Factory and it isnt enough for rent so Dad loans me the rest of rent and I decide to give Gramma my 30 day notice since I hate living there.
When I gave it to her I told her "I'm just not making enough so I am probably going to move in with my Brother again" She's like "oh no I was thinking and me and your father were talking earlier today ( I think he was trying to prep her for my 30 days but it backfired) and I was telling him he or someone you know could move in into the other room down there and you too could split the rent." I told her I'd think about it. I dont think I will but only paying 300 a month does sound nice....
Hmmm I dont know what I'll do.
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