Sam Catches Janie Snooping on His Computer Ron AI
I won't bore you, except to tell you that I again had a wide range of applicants before I hired a second one. There was a 65-year-old woman who had seen better days, a teenager right out of high school, who thought my work would be easy until she learned that she had to cook and clean. A woman with three kids of her own by two men and three kids that she adopted after being their foster mom. The reason she was working. I could just see the kids coming all the time or coming over with her because she had no sitter for them. No way!
Running out of options, I finally hired a young woman, Janie, who claimed to be a devout Christian and had cross tattoos in strategic places like centered on her cleavage that was considerable and an obvious play for my eyes, wondering where the others were?
What I liked about Janie was that she was a good cook and started to clean up my place and help me separate what I was going to sell from what was necessary. But almost everything that I put aside in my spare room, she said, "You know, that's really nice. I could use that chair. Would you consider giving it to me?"
The particular chair she had in mind was a frontier built New England chair from the time of the Revolution and worth a pretty penny like much of my collection of antiques that I thought I could sell to help pay for personal attendants. So, I never answered her when she asked that question quite often. Just shook my head in a way that maybe she understood.
One day, I was doing my tax return on my computer online. I decided to sit on the porch for a while and relax from the numbers. Janie was supposedly continuing the cleanup and sorting duties on her own.
I needed to go to the bathroom. With my walker, having the wheels recently removed of hair by her and oiled, no longer squeaking, I proceeded into my bedroom/office on the way to the bathroom. There she was, on my computer, looking at my financial records even though I had hidden the password for opening the computer from her. Made the mistake of leaving it open and on when I went to relax.
It was the last straw. I fired Janie on the spot, made sure that I paid her, and returned on the website where I filed a three-star reference for Janie with a verbal warning about her need for more than just her pay from her clients.
I was so injured by Janie's behavior and beginning to wonder if I would be able to find someone that would meet my needs without trying to take advantage of me. Instead of just doing everything needed around the house, I was rapidly beginning to need help with essentials like dressing, getting out of bed, showering and necessary toileting. All things that I knew I had to give up doing myself as my joints failed to work and I needed someone almost full-time.
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The third time's the charm, right?
I was really getting discouraged, but at wit's end. So, after some time had elapsed, I posted the job one more time.
Once again, there were about eight new applicants. All but three were eliminated by circumstance and didn't need to come for an interview and application in my home. The first one was a trans who couldn't seem to tell me whether he was a she or she was a he. During the interview I sensed deep psychological problems that I didn't want to deal with and sent him/her on her way.
While the second applicant had good credentials, she told me that she was going to complete her RN studies within three months and would have to leave the job to go work in a hospital that had already hired her upon her graduation. I didn't want to go through the hiring process again. So, I hoped for the best, but it looked like my prospects were running out fast and I might have to get myself into an assisted living home. Not sure how I would do that in my current situation. It would be expensive and I would lose my freedom.
When she came through the door to fill out my form, her big smile and beauty filled the room, and her personality revealed itself long before I even asked her a question.
"Hello," I announced when I saw her.
"Hi, I am Lovely Washington." She replied. "When I saw your ad, I think that I will be able to do your work."
"We'll see. First, I'd like you to fill out this little, one page form with all your details. You know, records that I have to keep for taxes and for paying you."
"Do you pay what you wrote in the ad?"
"I sure do. And I will give you raises if you do well. Let's get that form out of the way first."
My form required her full name, address, phone numbers, Social Security number, brief work history, credentials and references. As I watched, admiring this fine-looking woman, Lovely quickly filled out the form and had all the information at hand. Including a one-page resume. She seemed much more organized than some of the other, younger ones who didn't seem to want to go through formalities required. When she completed the form and gave me her resume, I began the interview.
"I see you are a CNA, what does that mean?"
"I am a certified nursing assistant. I have learned a number of skills for taking care of people with physical needs like yours, but I'm not a nurse and cannot do medical procedures other than giving you pills and a few other tests like measuring your temperature and taking your blood pressure unless a doctor or registered nurse teaches me the procedure correctly."
"Do you already know some of those things?" I was curious.
"I know how to set up oxygen, insert urinary catheters, have done injections of insulin and other drugs—things that nurses have taught me since I was 15."
"Fifteen? That's awfully young to start working!"
"I had no choice. I have three younger siblings. My father had left for another woman, and my mother was dying of uterine cancer."
"I know what that's like. My wife had breast cancer, and we both went through hell before she died. Thank goodness, I have no sign of cancer, yet. Just this arthritis that seems to be attacking my knees and hips, but so far seems to have left my hands and fingers in working order."
I then went into some detail about what I would need done around the house and the hours that I would need her to do those tasks. My house was starting to become quite dirty and messy. My papers weren't in order, and cooking had become difficult, as well as making my bed, doing my laundry and other essential tasks. Things that I had started doing after my wife died, but never as well as she had.
Lovely turned out to be far better than advertised. She soon had the house clean, organized and cooked better than my wife had. I felt it not my business to ask her if she had any relationships, like boyfriends husbands, and kids.
As time went along, she let me know that she had remained single, largely because she was so busy raising her younger two sisters and her brother, while taking care of her mother.
"I missed out on the prime time for meeting young men, my days in high school. Although I was asked often, never went on a date. Had to go right home from school and check on my mom. Just as I was graduating, she was dying. I had to miss all the major events, reschedule my final exams and even my graduation." She started to cry.
I offered her a tissue while patting her on the shoulder. We stopped what we were doing. I asked, "Do you want to tell me more?"
"There was no money for college, but I wanted my younger siblings to go, so I made sure that they did their studies well so that they got scholarships. My younger sisters helped me out with some of my caregiver work earning money that they saved to go to college. My brother did odd jobs. They all have finished college, married and moved with their spouses to other cities. My brother, Bob, has a son, Tony. My sister, Fairy, has a daughter, Angel, and my sister, Butterfly, is a registered nurse, and isn't married."
She explained further while they were working on his papers. "My mother was a hippie, a flower child. We were born on the road with our charismatic father who eventually tired of being tied down with a wife and children and took off with one of his groupie followers."
"Was he in a band?"
"How'd you guess? Mom told me that he was the leader of a rock 'n' roll group called the High Flyers or High Fivers." She said that "He wrote the songs. Only one that she hummed because mom had forgotten the words became a regional hit in the desert Southwest. It was about the desert wind blowing and had Navajo flute music background. Played it for us on an old record player that we had until the record wore out. The words were hard to make out amidst the loud flute imitating the wind.
"After she died and the welfare money stopped, I started taking care of one elderly person after another when their families started to give up on them. Unable to work with them when they changed so much from strokes to dementia and other ailments, like cancer. I've seen them all and most of my clients died or went to a nursing home or hospital. Never worked with anyone very long. Always had to look in the purple sheet at the supermarket for ads requesting help until I got on the Internet recently and saw your ad."
Lovely's work had taken her away from meeting men and dating because she tended to be working for older people, caring for their needs, and neglecting her own. Yet, she remained cheerful and nonchalant, never discussing any remorse for having missed out on that part of a young woman's life.
But, compared to me, she was a young woman at 45, and seemed even younger. As she cooked and cleaned around the house, she'd often sing a familiar song. An old song sung by Dinah Shore with a catchy tune. Something about, "What will be, will be."
I asked Lovely one day, "Where did you learn that song? I seem to recall my mother singing that song when I was really small."
"Oh, Sam, I didn't know I was singing. Did I disturb you?"
"No, not at all, Lovely. I've been hearing you singing it while you are doing work around the house and just found that it was time to ask you about it, that's all." Wondering why I hadn't asked earlier.
"Mom used to sing it while she did work around the house, too. When she was going through all the cancer treatments, she asked me to buy the record. I found it in a used record store along with some other records that I played for her to help relax her. All the others were rock 'n' roll songs that she liked. That's where I couldn't help learning to sing along with Dinah Shore to her delight."
In my younger days, I always had the car radio tuned to the local pop radio station to listen to music. And there were many songs that I sang along with and began to learn the words and the melodies. There was hardly a genre that I didn't like. It was something that I had neglected when I was alone and didn't sing them anymore because I never had music on around the house, especially when I was so busy taking care of my wife. Music just wasn't on my mind. Lovely brought it back to me.
I also had neglected going to a doctor. I didn't even have what people would call a "family doctor" because I didn't have a family. I had good insurance and went to a clinic that supported it. But I rarely needed any doctoring and thought that my arthritis I consulted with a doctor once about, was inevitable. And, I would just have to endure the pain and immobility that resulted with me going from cane to walker and having to give up almost all physical activity.
To be continued…
Copyright 2022 © Ronald W. Hull
4/23/22
