three bursts of fireworks in a dark sky

Now that the holidays are over, I can get back to my regular schedule and relax, maybe clean my own house. Or so I thought. My little train wrecks have other plans for me. They are feverishly taking stock of their lives, or lack thereof, and have determined that I am the key to the success of all their New Year’s resolutions.

The Cleaning Lady will grant your New Year’s resolutions…not

How and why they have decided to include The Cleaning Lady in their visions of the future, I have no idea. Maybe I’m just that good. Or maybe I’m just being punished for some terrible deed I did in a past life. Yeah, that’s probably it.

Midge has decided to quite drinking, which I anticipated because this has been her New Year’s resolution since I started with her many years ago. She’ll go a month, maybe two, then slowly creep back into the bottle. If I could help her put a cork in it I would, but we’ve never really talk about it. It’s none of my business and you know, I’m a cleaning lady, not a rehab specialist.

Lucky for me, this year she wants to include me in her quest for sobriety. I’ll be going through the house, finding old stashes, or new ones, and getting rid of them. “Cleaning Lady Liquor Police,” if you will. I’m cool with that.

But wait! There’s more! She also wants me to text her words of encouragement. From what I remember, the conversation started somewhere in the bathroom and by the time I got to the toilet I was nodding and grunting in blind agreement. Cleaning toilets has that effect on me. I go to my happy place so I don’t question the employment decisions I’ve made in my life.

man standing waste deep in square hole full of waste
I know the feeling my friend

And she wants these texts morning, noon and night. Instead of maybe, say, checking herself into a program, (unfortunately a program to her is setting up a charge account at the local liquor store) she has made me the program.

Granted she is paying me extra to do this, but ever since last week, I’ve had to become an expert on addiction, motivation, and self mastery among other things so I can send texts like “Every journey begins with the first step” and “Believe in yourself and you can accomplish anything.” But hey, if it sticks this time, I’ll be adding “Motivational Guru” to my “Cleaning Lady” title. My slogan could be “Cleaning minds while cleaning houses.” What do you think?

Then there is my little artist. She wants to get organized, which isn’t a big surprise as this is the third most common New Year’s resolution. This one is easy for me because my title already includes “Organizational Specialist,” which is just code word for completely OCD.

But she wants me an extra day a week so “we can work on her organizational skills,” which is code word for me doing all the work while she posts before and after pictures on Instagram with the caption “HARD AT WORK” followed by ten different weightlifting emojis. Is it really a fulfilled resolution if someone else does it for you? “STEP RIGHT UP FOLKS! Fulfilled resolutions here! Only ten cents a piece. And for two more cents, I’ll throw in an affirmation and an inspirational quote!

Ole’ Ironside’s resolution is to keep up with the ironing (translated: me). And The Bachelor resolves to keep up with the beer cans (translated: me again). The Greys want to have more fun this year (translated: me washing more dildos). I’m seeing a pattern here.

My New Year’s resolution is to get out of the house cleaning business. Just kidding, where would I get all this fabulous material. Really, my New’s Year’s resolution is to document even more wackiness from my little trainwrecks. Heck, maybe I’ll even add a few new ones.

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