In Praise of My Household Servants

Sometimes as I fall asleep at night, I hear the maids still at work, their low humming or rhythmic beating continuing long after I’ve gotten in bed.

What?  Maids, you say?  You mean, you have maids?

Why yes, don’t you?

I have a bunch of them, so many in fact, that I don’t always remember their names.  Let’s see if I can remember them all now.  Those of you who know me will know which ones I’ve overlooked.
There’s the maid that hauls the water and heats it up for our baths.  We normally call her Faucet.  She’s very reliable, and she doesn’t even grumble when we ask her for water in the middle of the night to flush the commode.

There are two maids, Washer and Dryer, that share the work of doing the laundry.  They are fast.  I throw the laundry at them, and in a very short time they have it back to me.  Because they are so fast, they don’t work every day.  They are also the ones that often like to work at night after I’ve gone to bed.  I don’t mind if Washer keeps working, but Dryer has a celebratory screech she makes when she’s finished, so sometimes I ask her to wait until morning to finish her job.

In our last house, we even had one whose sole job was to do the dishes.  Granted, she wasn’t a fulltime maid, and she couldn’t do them as fast as I could, but her being on our household staff meant that I didn’t have to do that job. 

Then there is the old matron who caries messages for us. She can take any message, to nearly anyone, at any time, and in an instant. She has several children who she has trained in this service so she goes by Ma Bell.
We have other servants. There is the groundskeeper who can cut the grass so evenly, it’s amazing.  Sure, I have to walk around with him.  He is rather young so that unlike some of the other servants, he can’t do it without one of us there.  Still, his abilities are quite remarkable.  Thanks, Mower, for all the work you do.  Put a sickle in my hand and the lawn just wouldn’t look as nice.

Then there’s one that is absolutely amazing.  We call her Electricity.  She keeps the furnace going in the winter, fans us in Summer and stokes the cookstove.  She lights the lamps for us at night.  She winds the clocks and the music box.  She even is able to make the picture box light up to let us watch moving pictures.  She is so efficient that she often helps the other maids with their work.

We also have a stable master.  He keeps the horses fed, groomed and the carriage running smoothly.  All we have to do is head out the door, and there’s the carriage ready and waiting for us.  He hands over the reins, and off we go.  His name is Hyundai.

Then there’s the gardener and his family.  He’s no ordinary gardener.  He not only keeps the garden for us, but when his family harvests the vegetables, they goes to the trouble of cleaning them and sometimes even cutting them up, so that when I go to cook, all I have to do is throw them in the pan.  They take the wheat to the miller and bring it back already ground into flour for us.  Sometimes they even take the flour to the baker so that I don’t even have to bake the bread.  He takes our animals to the butcher and brings back the meat all packaged up and ready for us. His abilities are truly astounding.  Through trade and bartering, he can produce from his larder almost any fruit or vegetable; any meat, fish or fowl;  any grain, flour, bread or cake I desire, regardless of the season! His name is Hannaford.

Sometimes I can’t believe how blessed I am to have all these servants.  Not only do they work hard, they almost never complain.  They cost very little to feed, and they lighten my load so much.  

So today I give thanks for all the household help I have.  If I didn’t have all that help, I certainly wouldn’t be able to spend most of my day doing the other jobs I do.