The obvious reason: she will clean your house, for a very reasonable fee. We paid ours $200 a month to come to our apartment 3 hours a day, everyday. She does the dishes, cleans the bathroom, vacuums, washes and irons all of the laundry, and doesn't make a peep while doing it. She is like a delightful little house elf that only speaks Chinese. Tony and I don't argue about who is going to do the dishes, we don't have to be responsible adults sharing the household responsibilities, we don't clear away the garbage after we order take-out, we leave crap everywhere! Then...woosh! It's gone. You are now thinking: in the future, you are screwed as you have conditioned yourselves to live like total slobs. You are correct. Our Ayi left just before we went to Thailand, and we have been navigating a sea of dirty underwear and unidentifiable junk on floors and tabletops ever since in the vain hope it will all just suddenly go away, like the good ol' days :( It's still there. But we're getting a new one next week and hopefully she will make it go away. I have not learned any lessons from this brief period of un-Ayi-ness other than...I like other people to clean up my mess.
When stuff goes missing, or anything goes wrong, you don't have to blame each other, just blame the Ayi. Can't find the TV remote? Ayi probably stole it. Didn't see/"recieve" your last gas bill? The Ayi probably threw it away. Ever since the Ayi left, Tony and I having been blaming each other for everything!!
"Where's my watch?"
"I don't know"
"But I put it down here and now it's gone"
"Who was the last person to tidy this?
"Not me, maybe the rabbit took it?"
See? If the Ayi were still working here, we both could have been angry at her together, instead of having nobody to blame but ourselves when stuff goes missing.
She takes care of the stuff we wouldn't think to do, but when they are done, they are awesome. Like, ironing Tony's work shirts. I cannot iron. I might actually have a vacuous hole in my brain that sucks out any instructions or information pertaining to ironing. Ironesia. Everything I have attempted to iron in the past actually looks worse than before I touched it. And Tony just irons on an as-needed-three minutes-before-I leave-for-work basis. She also folded my underwear into tiny little squares before she put them back in the drawers. I miss this small gesture. When I asked Tony to put them back in the drawer, he threw them in like he didn't even care about them. MY UNDERWEAR. I retaliated by chucking his in the drawer with socks unsorted. Sucker.
It's the little things that show you care, even when the Ayi does them for you.
She will make hilarious mistakes with your home and belongings that will bring you and your partner together in laughter. Such as sorting your naughty drawer into a clinical, IKEA style organizer or putting your sharpest knives face up in the utensil storage. She might run out of space on the laundry line and decide it's a good idea to dry your underwear on every lamp in the room, so that when you come home your living room looks like some kinky sex lair. This was especially funny the time Tony had students coming over, moments after he walked in the door. She might even start muttering ancient gutteral Chinese curses at you every time you've left the blender for her to clean, all chunky with smoothie residue.
I understand that everyone is different and we might not all agree that hired help essential to support the health of your relationship. There was also a time when I might have agreed. But having a tiny little Chinese lady clean my house everyday has become the equivalent to a can of Pringles. Once you pop....
Oh, and side note, this sandwich tasted so good. Why do I always read the ingredients list AFTER it's in my belly?!
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