Southern mothers have always been very “free” with their advice and opinions.  You never have to wonder what my mother thinks about my outfit, my kids or my personal life.  But lately she has felt the need to dole out her advice to others especially her cleaning lady.

Mother has her house cleaned every Wednesday.  It’s just a small two bedroom apartment but she supervises the job like she’s the caretaker of the governor’s mansion. The women are from an agency and in the past year she has gone through three of them.

The first one became a little” too familiar” with mothers debit card and on their weekly trips to the Dollar Store she would just pick up a few things for herself.  After a trip to the store mother looked her in the eye, shook her debit card in her face and said “I’m on to you missy!” . We never saw her again.

The second one just stopped coming back.  Mother claims she has no idea what happened to the poor girl but I have a feeling she couldn’t or didn’t want to put up with mothers “suggestions” anymore.

When I called mother on Wednesday to see how her day was going she announced that she had told her new cleaning lady that she was lazy.

ME: “Mother, you can’t just flat out tell people that they are lazy!”

MOM: “You most certainly can. I did today! She’s so lazy she can barely hold her head up. She walks in here like she’s nearly dead!

ME: ‘Well Mother, maybe she’s sick”

MOM: “She’s not sick, she’s trifling lazy and I told her so”

ME:  “Mother it really isn’t good practice to tell people they are lazy to their face.  Maybe you could have just suggested things she could do better.”

MOTHER: “I did. I walked her right back in that kitchen and told her that cleaning the microwave wasn’t cleaning the kitchen.  I don’t mind her taking a break but once that big lazy girl sits down it’s all over.”

ME: “Was she mad at you?”  At this point I am envisioning  the girl  in the silverware drawer looking for something sharp to kill mother with .

MOTHER: “No, she said she wasn’t mad and I told her I didn’t care if she was mad. Somebody needed to tell her.”

After this conversation for some strange reason I felt better.  I guess I should have felt sorry for this girl but I was a little relieved that  I am not the only one she gets after.  The big lazy girl will just have to suck it up. I sure hope they are paying her well.