Magical Thinking - Augusten Burroughs [32]
I checked the bathroom. Toilet? Yes, you could proudly offer it to your guest’s dog to drink from. But not the shower head.
And when I looked very close—in between the tiles, packed into the edge between the medicine cabinet mirror and frame—there was white powder. Which could only be baking soda.
And then there was that smell. While the apartment—at least from the waist down—was clean, the vinegar was making my eyes water.
Still, I decided, it was probably worth it. Surely by tomorrow when I got home from work, the fumes would be gone. And what did it matter that the apartment wasn’t so clean up top? Most of the dirt was down low, anyway. Dirt fell, it didn’t rise.
So, I decided, Debby had done a pretty good job considering. Considering, of course, meaning considering she only cleaned as high as she could reach. Maybe I’d bring this up to her next time I saw her.
Then I saw her bill, handwritten and placed in the center of my kitchen counter. “Hello Augusten. I hope you find the apartment to your liking. The floors were very dry and absorbed two bottles of extra-, extra-virgin olive oil. Because of the added time applying the oil to the floor and the damage to my already bad knees, I’ve had to charge you an additional forty dollars, in addition to the twenty-three dollars for the oil and shopping time. See you next Sunday! Debby.”
Two hundred and fifty-three dollars for an apartment that was exactly half clean?
Was she insane? Grandmother or not, she was a thief.
All week long, I found myself trapped in a paradox. While I was tempted to be extra-sloppy and leave globs of toothpaste in the sink, clothes hanging everywhere, and empty food cartons all over, I knew that I would be punished for this. Debby would charge me extra. On the other hand, if I didn’t do anything, she wouldn’t know how upset I was over her bill.
I was distracted at work, obsessing over it. And in the end, I decided that at least I would bring up the issue of the half-clean mirror.
So the next Sunday, I made sure I was there, waiting for her.
Debby arrived at ten and was startled to see me standing in the doorway. She had obviously expected to find me gone for the day, so she was munching comfortably on red licorice twists. “Oh!” she said. “Hi there.”
“Hi Debby,” I said, cheerful. “I just have one little thing to ask.” I figured “ask” was the right way to put it. Make her a part of the process. Make her feel involved. I walked over to the mirror and pointed at the glass. “I noticed?” Again, raising my voice in a question, my smile firm on my face. “I noticed that the mirror looks really beautiful.”
She smiled, but then as I continued it reversed into a frown.
“But only from the center down. The top of the mirror is dirty, Debby. And it’s the same with the windows. It’s like you only cleaned half of everything. The lower half.”
She looked at me and asked, “Are you criticizing me for being a short person?”
Instantly, a vision of myself on Court TV flashed in my mind. “No, of course not,” I said. “I’m just saying that I’d prefer it if you could clean the entire mirror, and not only the lower portion. If you have to use a chair to stand on, that would be fine.”
“Use a chair? To stand on? What exactly are you saying?” She shoved the package of Twizzlers into her jacket pocket. She clenched her teeth, and I saw the muscles in her jaw work, like she was chewing cud.
“I just mean that if you’re not tall enough to reach the tops of things, please use a chair.”
Suddenly, she smiled. “You know what? That’s a great solution. Thanks.