I had a maid when I was growing up. We called her Mom. She quit one day when I was fifteen and asked her to bring me the ketchup from the fridge for my hotdog.
“Whatsa matter, you gotta broken leg?” she snarled at me. Life was hell after that, what with taking my own laundry down to the basement, making my own peanut butter sandwiches and matching up my own socks like a common guttersnipe. Ah, but the good times returned when I came to Thailand on my LDS mission. For then, as Zero warbled, everybody did have a maid! A working girl who washed and cooked and swept. Life of Riley ain’t in it, as the Victorians would say. Of course the amenities were still rather rough and ready. No washing machines back then, so the maid took your shirts, pants and garments into the back and kneaded ‘em up good in a big red plastic pan full of soapy water, then slapped ‘em around on the side of the house. I happened to have some zippered garments and the rough house washing bent the zippers so I couldn’t zip ‘em up anymore. I had to make frequent stops while tracting to pull myself together, so to speak.
Most of the maids were LDS, so we were supposed to treat them kindly and always provide a good example, which made it hard to complain about the lousy food or pick your nose.
We had one loud-mouthed maid at Din Daeng. Church member, sure, but she squawked like Foghorn Leghorn and made nothing but boiled rice soup and runny scrambled eggs for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Finally the District Leader fired her. She went to the nearest cop shop and brought back a brown-shirted bozo who looked thoroughly confused as she launched into a frenzied accusation against us – we kept girls hidden in our rooms; we drank ourselves into a stupor every night; we deliberately put stamps with the king’s picture on our letters home upsidedown. The cop scratched his head, smiled nervously and obviously wished he could join us for the first two activities. But the third accusation was serious, so he wrote something in his book, gave a carbon copy to the District Leader, and left with the maid still pealing by his side like a cracked gong.
But that was a memorable exception. Most of the maids I recall were gentle souls, who tried to cook American dishes for us, with varying success. Our maid in Bankapi made outstanding spaghetti, although her tomato sauce was a mite heavy on the ketchup. She had seen an Italian movie once where the mama had thrown a strand of spaghetti against the wall to see if it was done, so she did the same thing. Our kitchen walls took on a fibered, ant-infested look. The maid up in Khon Kaen valiantly attempted a turkey one Thanksgiving. She got a church member to donate the gobbler, then plucked it like a chicken and stuck it in her biggest frying pan over the stove. The results were raw on one side, burnt on t’other; we nibbled somewhere between the two extremes.
The maid in Chonburi was by far the best. She did white shirts that came out so fluffy you thought you were wearing milkweed fuzz. Her cooking was all Thai and would make the mouth water on a mummy, and therein lay the rub. This was towards the end of my run as a missionary, when an odd psychology kicks in. The trunky Elder yearns for the Wonder Bread of home, but a sneaking hunch that he has goofed off just a little too much begins to trouble his sleep and then his waking thoughts. Now, while his language ability is at the peak, now, while he’s become immune to the pretty girls; now, while he has full command of the Discussions and can recite them forwards and backwards; now, while he thinks he understands the Thai mindset; NOW is the time to work like a fiend for that miracle family, that mother and father and 2.3 children that are just what the Church needs! So I shot out the door first thing in the morning with my companion and we did not come back till long after dark, stifling our hunger along the way with a bowl of anemic gweytio noodles. We’d come home to the broken remains of a feast – plaa tuu that had once been succulent and hearty. Glass noodles with shrimp, with just a hint of lemon grass and galenga. Som tum that reeked of chiles and garlic, with a mountain of sticky rice on the side. Sliced mangos swimming in coconut milk surrounded by coy pearls of quivering tapioca. Oh, there was so much that was good and fine and wasted of her cooking. Those predatory Elders that shared our apartment never missed a meal, those swinish humbugs, and they always piously assured us they would leave us plenty of leftovers. Bah! Locusts would have been more considerate. So I starved my last few weeks in Thailand, while the Horn of Plenty was drained by those who should have been my bosom companions.
Well, well, that was all long ago. I've been batching for myself for so long now that I doubt I'd recognize a maid if one came up and bit me. Or kissed me. One is just as likely as the other.
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