You know those "one day we will all laugh about this" moments ?We are about to share one now.
Before we begin, if you are offended by the words 'vibrator' or ' dirty laundry' or feel you may actually throw up at the thought of me being a sexual being....change this page to Google Image INSTANTLY and type in the words 'kittens with flowers'.
I like the one in the pot.
So, back to my story.
Living in Asia has its advantages.
Proper Laksa. Funny signs. Home help.
I have always been fortunate enough to have the assistance of a lady from a poorer country than my own to clean up my crap when the will has left me.
When my children were smaller, or when I was in the throws of producing a new child- which seemed continuous for 5 years- live in domestic help was a literal life saver.
Very few people have family nearby when they live expatriatly....and quite truthfully there is a lot to be said for paying someone to take the baby for a few hours where and when you need it rather than waiting for the largess of an interfering relative who spends an hour telling you that you need more rest but never gives you any.
Instead of telling me how you did it back in your day, Madam, how about you piss off?
And take the child with you.
Cheersthanksalot.
Cast the clock forward a number of years......I am newly single, living with only my daughter at home, the boys being with their dad, and I still have live in help.
Her name is Lolita- but really- and recently my daughter wrote a blog about her feelings towards this remarkable person.
At least, I came to see her as remarkable.
I am not one of these expats who befriends their maids.
I have lived within the system for too long to see the situation as other than what it really is.
For those of you at home, or in other places, who shake their heads at the servitude or unfairness that is the modern day house servants lot, I say only this.
The Philippines was once rich. Corruption within the country made it poor.
Women suffer the brunt of this unjust history, as women often do.
They work overseas to support their families, they are sometimes mistreated.
It is a job, it is not always a nice job.
There are no other options, other than starvation, for a large number of them.
I wish, with all my heart, that Catholicism and power hungry corrupt men would piss off out of the Philippines so that the women could stop having endless hungry mouths to feed.
Truthfully, I can't make that last thing happen.
So I treat my helpers with the same respect I treat everyone.
That is my little bit, it's not much, but every little bit helps.
OK, are we ready for the vibrator story?
I can't remember if I have told it before, but something happened this weekend that made me think of it, so here we go......
When I was 'newly single blah de blah de blah' as I mentioned earlier, I was working on radio here in HK, doing the Breakfast Show at a station called Metro.
Shit station, shit company, but a gig is a gig.
One morning I raced off to work at the usual time....EARLY....and was standing in my studio minding my own business, drinking coffee and think about how much I hated my Station Manager when BAM...it hit me.
The vibrator I had used to......massage my aching joints.....the night before was laying in its place somewhere in my bed.
Now, we expats play a funny game with the home help.
We pretend they see nothing, they pretend they know nothing, when in fact they see EVERYTHING and know EVERYTHING...so the fact that I had toys was not going to come as a shock to the lovely Lolita.
However in MY head, I had breached some kind of over sharing privacy line.....what was I to do?
The fact that this poor woman had been through hell and back with me and a substance addiction, clinical depression and the break down of my family and marriage was of little consequence to my now panicked mind.
She was sure to make my bed.
And when she did, she would see the vibrator.
And when she did, she would know I'd used it.
Oh, the shame.
Even know I can feel my face in full blown chameleon mode- without the googly eyes.
I rang my daughter, who assured me that finding vibrators in beds would not be a new thing for our maid.
I will not go into any further detail regarding that conversation other than to say, to this day, the very THOUGHT of that conversation make my eyes involuntarily shut.
I managed to make it all the way through my day, and, on getting home, raced into the bedroom to find my bed made, and my now sparkling clean vibrator ( go ahead cringe, I am) placed politely next to my pillow.
We never spoke about it.
I have still not fully recovered from it.
I may NEVER fully recover from it.
I am hoping that by writing it out often enough, the humiliation will drain from my blood.
5 years after the event, I STILL find myself gurning and squirming, and not in a fun way.
So what lead me to write about the 'Lolita and the Vibrator' incident.
Yesterday after work, I was feeling poorly, and I decided a nice set of clean sheets would put things right.
Striped the bed, bundled up the old ones , chucked them in a bag.
I live alone now, well, with my cat, so Guinness and I only indulge ourselves in part time help.
I send all my laundry out to the local guy, Raymond.
Raymond has been doing my washing and drying since the week I moved in to this neighborhood.
Over the years we have chatted, he is about 65, retired from a long career in 5 Star hotels, his daughters work with him, he knows my kids, asks after them often, tells me I am looking nice when I wear make up, he delivers clean dry folded laundry to my house for less than it would cost to buy a Subway sandwich in Australia.
Raymond is one of the nicest men I have ever met.
If you leave 20 cents in a pocket, he will tape it to the receipt.
He once found a lipstick in my dirty clothes and popped it in a bag inside the bag for me with a note saying it looked expensive and he hoped it still worked.
Raymond knows all of his customers by name. He knows their addresses.
If you don't have cash, he will keep a tab, and you can pay him when you get the chance.
Old school top notch service, I admire and respect him.
On my way to drop of the bag of dirty clothes today I was thinking that this perk, Chinese Laundries, is one of the great aspects of living in Asia when it hit me.
Where the fuck was my bright purple vibrator?
The blood literally drained from my face.
Springing a fully loaded adult device on a married woman my age is one thing, after all, she was living away from HER husband, maybe she used one too?
But how the hell would I EVER be able to face this elderly Chinese gentleman again?
And I LOVE the way Raymond folds my things :(
You know the term 'Stop, Drop and Roll' they use for fires ?
In the middle of the street, 10 metres from the shop, I stopped walking, dropped the laundry onto the street, and watched my vibrator roll into the gutter.
In front of a couple of early morning coffee drinkers, I nearly wept with joy.
THANK CHRIST !!!!!!!
I am not a religious person, but I can not tell you just how many deities received my grateful praises at that moment.
That I had remembered BEFORE the laundry went in was, indeed, a miracle.
Even now, I am shaking my head at the sense of relief.
I didn't care that it was now covered in whatever the hell it was covered in, I didn't care that I had to wash it privately in a Pacific Coffee bathroom basin and carry it in my handbag all day....and before you ask why I didn't ditch it, I happen to LIKE this particular Buzzy Friend and when a girl finds something she likes, she sticks with it......also, putting a purple vibrator in a public bin is trashy.
As a key learning point from this experience,I have made a solemn vow to myself to always think about what I do with my battery powered bedtime partners when their participation is over, and to NEVER again leave them alone and abandoned where innocents may discover them.
And that is my story for today.
And because I need to purge the things that pain me, you get to hear about it too.
Some people say it's because a problem shared is a problem halved, I always say, better out than in.
So to speak.
