Which Reminds Me

Probably the most obnoxious maid we had was Mercedes. Mercedes was our maid in El Salvador for about seven months. Even though Mercedes was not a thief in the vein of Toña, she was an extremely obnoxious person, always butting in when and where she did not belong. Nobody really cared what Mercedes thought about anything but she did not seem to understand her place. She was like a household spy. If we were in the family room watching TV she would always somehow manage to be standing there in the hallway sweeping the floor or something for a prolonged time and then she would come in and flop down in the family room chairs and pretend to be part of the family. This got very tolerated for a while until finally I had my mother told her to spend her leisure time in the maid's room because it was very distracting to have to drop everything and make conversation with Mercedes and answer all her nosy and impertinent questions regarding matters of no concern to her. It was nice that she was taking college classes and was planning to be a teacher but I did not like feeling myself compelled to compare my vocational plans with her. Just because Mercedes perhaps became a certified teacher, or not, I ha no diea, that did not mean that I had to also do the same in order to compete with Mercedes. I don't want to make any personal decisions just because Mercedes thinks that I should do this or that. I prefer to make my own vocational decisions for my own reasons of which the maid is not invited to discuss. This type of thing I only discuss with my mother. My mother is the one who gives the maid her instructions, like I was telling Susie. So thanks anyway.