At the end of this blog post I will be officially (although admittedly temporarily) out of things to complain about.

We've had the same cleaning lady for about 10 years. She's great. Let's call her Perfecta. She cleans the hell out of the house, she's better at organizing things than we are, and she'll offer to keep an eye on my daughter when Daisy is out of school. Also, she's really nice. And she arranges the stuffed animals all cute! Doggies and kitties living side by side in harmony!

A couple weeks ago Perfecta started bringing a helper along because she has more work than she can handle. I applaud her efforts to expand her business, but this new helper is not so good.

Yes, that's what this blog post is about. I'm complaining about minor changes in the staffing of my weekly cleaning crew. Life is hard here on the foggy edge of the Western frontier.

What doesn't she do right, you ask? Does she fail to scrub the toilets or mop the kitchen floor? No, she does those things, but it's the little things that have gone awry. Like with my socks.

I have probably a dozen pairs of white socks. At the most hurried of glances, perhaps these pairs look alike, but they're not. They weren't all bought at the same time, and some are Nike socks while others are Target socks and yet others are Nordstrom socks. Not every pair is unique, but an iota of effort will enable you to distinguish the Nordstrom socks from the Target ones.

The new cleaning lady will sometimes just mix them up. I might find a plush but well-worn white sock paired with an thin and anemic white sock. It's like Laurel and Hardy in my sock drawer! Totally unacceptable. She does the same things with the black socks. Like the fat Star Jones married to the thin Star Jones. Does she think my feet won't notice the difference? They totally do! One foot is all, "Woohoo! This fat Star Jones is sooo cushy!" while the other foot cries, "Damn these pointy Star Jones hips!"

And the dishwasher! Who on earth loads glasses on the bottom rack? No one! Well, no one except the new cleaning lady. To tell you the truth, I'm not exactly sure why glassware needs to go on the top rack but EVERYONE ELSE ON THE PLANET KNOWS THAT GLASSES GO ON THE TOP! She's a cleaning lady. She's supposed to have majored in this stuff. Perfecta always put the glasses on the top.

Perfecta asked me the other day if everything was going alright with the new cleaning lady, and I assured her things were ok. I didn't tell the truth because the new cleaning lady was standing right there and I felt awkward complaining about her. Also, what kind of asshole complains about barely mismatched socks? Do I want to be that kind of asshole? No, I'd rather be the kind of asshole who just bitches about it in his blog.

From this we may conclude that everyone has some sort of happiness equilibrium level. No matter how crappy life is going, you can always find something to cheer you up. And no matter how great life is going, there's always a salad fork mixed in the stack of entree forks.