The Washer Woman

The Washer Woman ©
By
Michael Casey

Today we had the Ivanka Trump vacuum-cleaning Art event in Washington DC, her over protective and maybe even pompous brothers defended her. I did actually work, and work very hard at the Crowne Plaza Birmingham NEC for 3 years, 2002 to2005. When I met my own wife she had a vacuum in her hand, I’ve even helped vacuum hotel corridors amongst the 10 or roles I did at the hotel.

Try mattress tossing for yourself as well. So I know the value of physical work, though now with arthritis and post quadruple heart bypass I’d probably die if I tried. I’m only fit to be a gigalo well in my imagination, if I can bait enough of you politically correct readers. Though the PC Brigade would never read any of my stuff, besides to Smile is a Sin.Smiling is so very uncool.

The Washer Woman was of course the lowest person of the social strata, she took in washing because she was so poor. In the old days washing was placed on hedges to dry. Then washing lines were invented, and the windmill was pressed into service to dry clothes, hanging codpieces and all that on the sails to dry. As the sails spun wheat was ground to produce flower, Windy Miller so to speak. He would feed people while his wife cleaned their knickers and knew all their dirty secrets judged by the state of their dirty washing.

If you’ve seen the 1974 Three Musketeers I am sure you can picture everything in your mind’s eye. It is I escaping the Lady’s bedchamber through a window, just like Patrick in an early scene from The Butcher The Baker and The Undertaker. Now washer women or cleaners know everything, because the see everything and tidy up the mess. I know this too because it was me always working the late shifts, the horrible shifts, so I always met and talked to the cleaners.

People, certain people talk down to cleaners or just ignore them. When my sister was training to be a teacher 30 years ago she had a Summer job as a cleaner, doing a deep clean at the Hospital. This is where the ward is emptied and everything is cleaned to an inch of its life, good job they are in a hospital. Now as a cleaner she was treated one way when she bumped into people in the canteen. So when she let it slip that actually she was training to be a teacher then she was treated differently by doctors and whoever she bumped into in the hospital.

The obvious question is why wasn’t she just treated the same all the time? In my concierge days I probably met and talked to 100,000 people over those 3 years, so I’d pitch myself, my style of talking to who I was talking to. A millionaire performer one minute, a blind lady with a dog the next. Then one of the chefs round the back of the hotel, or Vicky one of the cleaning crew next. I hope I treat everybody equally, I don’t put myself on any pedestal, only stupid people do that, as you become a target. It’s wiser to hide your light under a bushel at first until people get to know you.

That’s why people with a sense of humour are always more fun. If all a person can talk about is their Wealth, then that’s sad, or even tragic. We’veall seen Citizen Kane where on his Deathbed the billionaire says Rosebud which was his childhood sledge. Will Trump say, I built a Wall, if he gets his way finally. Isn’t far better to be remembered with Love?

He was a fat silver haired writer in shades from Birmingham England, of no use whatsoever with his body hampered with arthritis and a dodgy heart, even though he did have beautiful soft hair, full of dandruff. A deluded fat so and so, who thought he could be a gigalo, was he joking or hoping? But, and here’s the thing for you American readers, he made me laugh, he made over 40 countries laugh.

Now that perhaps is my legacy, though I can dress up in drag just Freddie Mercury did and stand next to that Ivanka Trump lookalike and sweep that carpet in Washington DC. Though I’d prefer not to vacuum for crumbs, how about dollar bills. And Ivanka if Barron sends you this to read, why not sneak down and join in the vacuum-cleaning fun, 2 hour workout is perfect. Go I double dare you, and if you are in UK I’ll buy you fish and chips, what an offer, I may even throw in a kebab.