The Mercurial Cleaning Lady

The good thing about living with Yuan Yuan is if I ask her to put something somewhere, I don't need to worry about forgetting where I told her to put it; I can always find it later on the floor. Having first struggled against but then embraced this reality, I amuse myself with variations on the subject, at her expense if I can manage it:

"Can you put this in the trash can? Sorry, I mean next to the trash can."
"Where do you want this on the floor?"
"Take your shoes off when you walk around on our dinner table!"
"Oh my God! Is that a piece of empty floor I see peeking out? Quick! Cover it with this used tissue!"
"Where's my cellphone? I can't find it on the floor and I know I told you to put it on my desk."
"In case you're wondering later what your bra smells like, it's my left foot."

And then this morning I woke up without the feeling of dread someone with a healthy instinct of self-preservation would have produced as surely as a teenager produces erections. My instinct of self-preservation had taken private lessons with Bob Dole without me knowing and continued to sleep, limp and carefree, as I somnombulated through the waking hours. And then I tried to find the half empty bag of milk I put on the table yesterday to make some coffee and to my astonishment it wasn't on the floor. And neither was anything else. Yuan Yuan had cleaned the room without so much as asking me more than 600 times whether I'd like to help her. All I ask is a little consistency...