When I was at university, I briefly had a girlfriend who cleaned two small student rooming houses
for elderly women who lived in the houses. I lived in a nearby men's cooperative rooming house
where we shared cooking and cleaning responsibilities. We had only recently permitted a few
female students join our cooking cooperative, my girlfriend being one of them. She and I became
a cooking team, and she took note of my cooking and cleaning skills.
As it happens, she was going to spend a term overseas studying a foreign language in an
immersion-type environment. She knew I was always looking for part-time jobs to earn a little
spending money. She said, "Why don't you become a cleaning lady for three months?'
"Surely you're joking," I replied. She quickly let me know that she was indeed quite serious. She
told me that the two women for whom she worked were very conservative and demanded that
she wear a pinafore-type apron.
I had no idea what a pinafore was, so that evening she brought her pinafore over to show me. "They
will be thrilled if you wear it," she reassured me. "If it were me, I would make you wear a proper
maid's uniform," she told me with a wink. "But the landladies would find that offensive. So here's
what you are going to do for me. You will wear my girdle and bra under your boy clothes."
She further warned me that she knew I could not keep a poker face, and that she would be quizzing
me in detail when she returned from her overseas language study.
And thus I was loaned out for maid service, and l worked hard under very demanding older
women to earn the small amount they were paying. Sadly, a few months after she returned, we both
graduated and went our separate ways for graduate study.
Maid Ruth Ann