On a recent Thursday morning the police came to my house. Not the regular police, but a self-appointed officer from a specialized unit. I was startled.
My police experience is limited. Many years ago when we housed a teen-aged son, he burst into our bedroom early one morning yelling "I just found our car." We had no idea our car was not in our garage. It seems he'd "found" the car while on his early morning bicycle paper route. It was a wild teen-age saga that we wanted to believe. When, 30 years later, he confessed to having taken the car himself and it had run out of gas, he was surprised to learn that we had known it all along. During this farce, we had called the police and the young officer who arrived was new to the job. He asked to use our phone to call headquarters, then asked if we knew the number of the station. The whole incident had a Keystone Kops flavor.
The only other time I've had doings with the law was a recent theft of some yard statuary. One item was a brass reclining figurine that had been a gift. I miss it, but the biggest loss I feel is in my belief in nice people's honesty. The policeman who came was efficient and nice, but the statuary is still missing.
But neither of those officers belonged to the branch of enforcement that came to our house recently. I know this officer well. It was Cindy.
Cindy has come to our house every Thursday for 10 years. Ostensibly, she comes to clean. And she certainly does. Cindy does windows, floors and anything else that needs sprucing up. I once caught her climbing around on the roof clearing gutters. Another time she was knocking moss off some shingles. And during the years of our time together, she has made our life much better. We have learned to lean on Cindy. When I had a bee stinger on the bottom of a toe, she removed it for me. She remembers when to change the batteries in the smoke alarm, reminds us that it is time for our flu shots, gives us book reviews - all the while cleaning the carpets and polishing the brass. Cindy fits no job description. She is in a category all by herself.
The cats recognize her car when she drives up. One cat goes under the bed because of the noise she makes with the vacuum, and the other runs out to meet her.
Cindy could have other jobs. She is qualified, but likes the independence of being her own boss and enjoys her "people," as she calls us. And she is always learning. Last winter Cindy and Al started expanding their vocabularies, one word a week. Between her visits they each look for new words to share. They both are beginning to talk funny. One day Cindy greeted me with , "Housework is the sisyphean endeavor, and although I have a general feeling of lassitude I have managed to polish the rugose brass with alacrity and earn my emolument of the day." I could not answer.
I tell you all this so you will see why I wasn't surprised the other week when, after doing some wash, Cindy announced, "You need new underwear. I notice many older people do."
"Cindy," I admonished, "it's not professional to discuss your clients' underwear. But I will go buy us some." I figured that would be the end of it. I was wrong.
The next week when Cindy arrived at her usual 7:45 a.m. we were at breakfast. She came in and began to swoop and swish around the room like a demented dervish. She was wearing an ersatz "Superman" cape across her shoulders and down her back. The cape was made of the largest pair of women's cotton underpants I had ever seen. Holding them together under her chin was a large brass badge with an official looking star in the middle.
She came to rest by the table.
"I am the underwear police, the panty patrol," she announced.
I looked at my husband across the breakfast table.
"I think we've been busted," I declared.
She nodded in agreement: "What a pestiferous situation!"
Patty Perrin lives in Ashland and writes a monthly column for the Tidings
By Patty Perrin
