Runaway Maid, Twice Shy - The sequel.

14 August 2010, Sunday (4 Ramadhan)

Sequel from my domestic maid tales, "Runaway Maid, Once Bitten".

After reporting to my agent about my men-crazy cum runaway maid, both my husband and I had taken a decision not to take her back if if the agent found her. How could we trust her with my father-in-law if she had no sense of responsibility and could take off at her whims and fancies!!!

After disappearing for 8 days, the agent finally found her in Sungai Buloh (she thought she could easily get another job from the nurseries, but boy was she wrong!).

And the agent managed to cajole us to take her back and gave her another chance. They pointed out that if we didn't take her back, it would be such a waste of money with us having paid the agent a lot of fee.

Naturally when she came back, she begged for our forgiveness and I had told her in uncertain terms that I was going to keep her handphone, which was actually the roots of all evils, and what I'd termed as Perils of Technology. I told her that she could only use the phone on Saturdays.

That Saturday after she came back, she asked for her phone and at the end of the day I had asked for the phone back, as agreed between us and the agent. You'd not believe how willful and how mulish she was. She refused to return the phone citing reasons that her husband called her regularly and she didn't want to miss his calls. I doubted that very much.

What she didn't know was, when I took her phone, I had taken the opportunity to check her contacts. My!! My!! My!!. I couldn't believe my eyes. There was Cinta 1. Cinta 2. Cinta 3.... Sayang 1. Sayang 2. Sayang 3... And most of her contacts are the male species. So I was spot-on with my nick name for her, i.e. "Men-crazy"!!!

What could I do, but to relent. But I had repeatedly reminded her that she could only use the phone at night. Naturally, she defied me. At times, she even went out to the backyard to receive and make calls out. Her phone calls were so constant that it irritated me to the very core of my being!!!

And after things had settled down somewhat (what I hadn't reckon with her was, a storm was brewing quietly on her front), I had proposed to my husband to take back my father-in-law. So, on 1 August 2010, we took him home.

Everything seemed normal. And that evening, on 1 August 2010, I decided to give her the Maid's Job Description (which I hadn't bothered to give her at the beginning) and I had included the things she needed to do to take care of my father-in-law.. This time I had modified it somewhat given that she's such a blur soul, so I had simplified everything to make it clear to her.

Despite the JD being crystal clear, she was still uncertain. The next morning, August 2 2010, I had gone down to see my husband off before he left for Bintulu, Sarawak. And he had commented, "Lily is really efficient!". "Huh", I had thought. "She had given Bapak (father) a bath and had even washed his clothes." And it was only 7.15 a.m. I was pleasantly surprised.

And when I asked if she had given him breakfast, i.e 4 pieces of bread with butter and jam, she had answered in the affirmative. She said she had given him 2 pieces and pointed to the "Kueh baulu" which I had brought home a day earlier!!! What a total jerk!!!

So, I had told her to give him 4 pieces of bread, otherwise he would be starving and demanding for more food. And this time, I saw her taking 8 pieces!!!. I didn't realise the extent of her sloppiness and how dense, how harebrained, how foggy and how vague her brain was. Couldn't she differentiate between 4 and 8? Oh my!!! What else do I have to deal with this thick-numbskull maid?

After my husband had left for Sarawak, I went back to my room. And at around 10:30 a.m I suddenly recalled what my husband had told me about her having washed my father in-law's clothes. I went down to remind her not to wash his clothes in the washing machine but to hand wash them.

When I went down, she was in the bathroom. But I though something was not right as she was talking on the phone, and she was in the bathroom. I dismissed this without much thought as she had done many harebrained and idiotic things before. I didn't think that at that time, she was making plans for her second getaway.

So I went up again, and would come down later to remind her. And at around 11.30 a.m, when I went down, the room was in darkness. And when I called her, there was no reply. So I switched on the light but couldn't find her anywhere. And saw that the key was in the keyhole on my grille door.

I had thought at that time that she must have gone to do gardening outside my house compound. But I soon realised that she had scooted off for the second time. Imagine my anger at that time.

We had trusted her enough to want to bring my father-in-law back, and imagine on the 2nd day of him coming back, she had made her disappearing act once again. And this time I had reached boiling point!!!

After calling the agent, I  had made a decision that she WAS NEVER GOING TO RETURN TO MY HOUSE EVER AGAIN!!! Imagine the trouble she had caused me, leaving me in the lurch, with a semi-paralyzed father-in-law, a husband who was away in Sarawak and me, with an aching spine and back!!!

And because of this incident, I had decided once and for all that I was never going to take another full-time maid from Indonesia ever again. Once bitten twice shy, and in her case, it's twice bitten, several times shy!!!

Today I'm much happier with a weekly Filipino help who comes in once a week for 4 hours to help me with the household chores. My bathrooms are much more cleaner now compared to the last 5 months and the ironed clothes are much smoother and crispier as Lily was a total failure in these aspects. In fact, GOOD RIDDANCE LILY!!! I'm so thankful and glad you're finally out of my life!!! It's been a nightmare the last five months and finally I can sleep peacefully, despite nursing a failing spine....