Not so short update

My my...i realise now that i owe you all tonnes of stories that has been accumulating since last year. Hmm...i think i should begin with the story that lead to everything (or most) that has been going on with my life so far.

My maid.

Before i go on, allow me to share a little history about my maid. She, whom i shall hereon now refer to as L (and "she"), is a person of great drama. She loves to tell stories and is actually a relatively good cook.

Speaking of cooking, she loves to experiment on different recipes. I give her full credit for trying. Really, i do. When she first arrived to my house, she was in full spirits to let us experiment her cooking. She even told us happily that she started a restaurant at her hometown with her as the cook. With that in mind, we were excited and looked forward to her dishes.

I can still remember, one afternoon when i came back from Uni that she told me she prepared pan mee for lunch. I heard my tummy grumble loudly. I was starving! FOOOOD! HERE I COME!

As it turns out, i was clearly not prepared for the sight of the food that was served in front of me.

To me, Pan Mee comes in noodley form (and some in teared form) served with hot soup, some minced beef, fried ikan bilis (anchovies) and spicy chilli. Let me tell you first hand that what i had was far from the ordinary. In fact, i am not sure if this dish exist anywhere else other than this country because never in my humble life, have i ever seen or eaten my maid's version of Pan Mee.

Expecting to taste yummy good Pan Mee, little did i expect a bowl full of:

Humongous chunks of flour in the size of my palm swimming in plain soup.

I practically forced fed myself and nearly choked on palm-sized flour.

I never ate any mee (or anything flour-ish) for a week.

Otherwise, she knew my weakness for spicy dishes and made it up to me pretty quickly. She made the best sambals anyone has ever made. This, i say it without dripping with sarcasm. People from her kampung area make the best sambals. I do believe that they survive solely on good sambal, raw vegetables and plain rice. On different occasions, maybe fried fish was added on as an extra dish. Anything cooked with tomato sauce were probably for sissies.

Anyway, i'll get to the juicy part of the story. L LOVES to talk. Perhaps something else we have in common aside from our love for chillies. :D My parents do not object her talking. If we do, i think all our maids would become hysterical and probably go crazy making best friends out of onions and garlic. Like most families, we leave a set of keys for the back door above the refrigerator in case of unforeseen emergencies and for other "emergencies" such as cleaning cat poo. Naturally, she creates opportunities for small talks with other maids during these "emergency" cleaning-cat-poo sessions. We're okay with that too. No harm talking and smelling cat poo.

But what we are unhappy about is the fact that "other emergencies" do not include using the back door keys to venture out from the house INTO other houses to VISIT other maids. ESPECIALLY LEAVING THE BACK DOOR UNLOCKED! First of all, there are two females in the house including L and my sibling. If she goes house hopping like this, my sibling is left alone in the house and with all the robberies happening during day time, you can never be too safe these days! Having caught her once, i have already warned her and adviced her on the dangers of leaving the doors unlocked. She apparently repented, said her sorrys to my parents later that night and everything went back to normal.

Or so we thought. She apparently does not understand the meaning DO NOT.

We caught her a few more times and she later blamed her behaviour on her maid-friend S who was the "bad guy" and the queen of the maids (if there ever was one). According to L, S went around lending everyone her phone to make phone calls back home and apparently, L broke the phone and now S was demanding RM 100 for the damages. L actually kneeled in front of my parents to confess and asked for the money. My mom simply told her that when L gets her wages for the year then only she will use that money to pay S back. We left the matter as that and my mom later also warned L that if L ever went out through the back door again, we would lock the door and with that, my mom kept the key safely and we soon forgot about the incident.

Until Christmas eve.

I was out at night "counting down" till Christmas at the Curve with Chu Ian and the usual suspects. :D Which, by the way, was somewhat like a suicidal pack for all present because we were practically choking to our deaths through the inhalation of the toxic fake snow spray. They ought to produce a more smelling-friendly spray lar. Not fun at all.

So there i was happily counting down till my death bed, completely oblivious to the drama that was unfolding at the comforts of my home. It was only when i arrived home and was in bed that my mother came to inform me about what happened.

My maid got locked out of the house!

Like i have mentioned, we had warned her that we would lock her out if she ever repeated her frequent outings. So that was exactly what we did the very next time that happened.

It was a little past 9:30 at NIGHT that my mother went looking for her to ask her to keep the food left for my sibling. After several attempts of calling her from outside her room, my mother knocked on the door - thinking that perhaps, she may have fallen soundly asleep. Despite pounding on her door and was at a risk of knocking it apart, L still did not respond. Fearing the worst, my mother opened the door and to her horror, found it EMPTY. Her lights and fan were switched on and the radio was blaring away but no one was in sight!

Immediately, my mother quickly made sure that L was not out dumping rubbish and went to check on the back door. It was unlocked. Somehow or another, L must have looked through my mother's drawers in search for the back door key and found it. God knows what else she took. As it happened that only my mother and sibling were alone in the house, my mother quickly locked all the doors (and the back door) to ensure safety. Then they waited for her to knock on the door to come back home.

She never did.

It was not as if she ran away because the next day, a guard came to our house to inform us that L left a number with him (very suspicious) and my mother talked to her over the phone. L was apparently crying and accusing my mother of not giving her money when in fact, my mother did not promise or indicate anything whatsoever! On another phone call, she said she was at a "kakak"'s house and was apparently "kurung"-ed and not fed! So my mother gave her the ultimatum: come back or we would lodge a report and she would be an illegal immigrant.

She decided she rather be illegal than face the music so, on Saturday (after giving her many chances to come back), we lodged a police report.

Later on, after some therapeutic spring cleaning to be rid of L's presence, we uncovered many shocking things about her. According to neighbours, she stayed over at a man's house one night and has been "layan"-ing guards at our housing area and we found stacks of reload receipts dating as early as July and as late as the day before Christmas eve! Not just that! But the time stated on the receipt showed us that she was actually out at 4 o'clock in the MORNING! NO WONDER SHE HAS BEEN SO SLEEPY!

Previously, S also accused L of sending money to her hometown. That sounds harmless but not when by right, she has not even received her pay yet! Not working for even barely a year and she has already created so much of havoc! Honestly, i am glad she is gone. Had she stayed on, she would probably be stealing behind our backs and putting our lives in danger!

Which brings me to my busy busy life lately. Thanks to L, we have maid-phobia. So we are currently trying to live without the assistance of a maid and see what we can make out of the situation. Without the need for assignments to keep me busy, i now have house chores to add on in my to-do list. Which is not quite bad as i do not have any assignments to tie me down yet.

So yes. I am cooking, sweeping the floor, sunning the clothes, occasionally cleaning the toilets, washing the dishes, taking in the dried clothes and making the bed. Which, i must say, is...quite ok so far. Having in the past admit to only have cooking skills that are limited to frying eggs and cooking a bowl of maggi mee, i can now proudly say that i can cook proper main meals! Hehe!! So maybe, it was a good thing she did not come back. :D

But the only thing i detest is throwing the rubbish because frankly, it stinks. Especially if you had prawns as part of your dish the night before. Oh GAWD. IT'S DEADLY. You can really kill someone with that smell.

Washing toilets can help anyone lose weight because after scrubbing the floor and walls, i might as well have been running on treadmill for 3 hours. The rest of the job is fun. Sweeping is incredibly satisfactory when you see all the dirt swept away and the room is clean. Sunning clothes are ok too! :D I suppose, once you make the best out of any situation, all is bearable. :D

K lar. I'm heading off for dinner now. Till the next update!! :)