1.

Daily Schedule

7 am, Arise
Prepare breakfast table and make coffee
Clear table and wash dishes and put away
Make up beds and dust generally
Sweep front steps and rear entrance and
around garbage pails

5 pm, set table for dinner
Put on a clean serving uniform
(Uniforms: white or black for serving with cap)

7 pm, serve dinner
Clear and wash dishes & straighten out your kitchen

9 pm
Remove coverlets from bed and turn beds down for sleeping

- - -

2.

Weekly Schedule

Monday, Wash day
Hang clothes in rear of garage
Straighten up house

Tuesday, Iron & Mangle
Straighten up house
All chrome to be polished

Wednesday, Your day off
Straighten up house before you leave

Thursday, Kitchen cleaning
Clean cabinets
Dust shelves & window ledges
Polish furniture & woodwork
Clean marble lavatory in hall
Weekly cleaning of frigidaire (take inventory of groceries and staples for replacement)
Clean laundry room & cabinets & appliances
Clean Stove and Broiler thoroughly

Friday, Thorough Cleaning of Downstairs Area
Dust floors with mop and polish
Vacuum rugs & staircase & foyer
Polish furniture
Clean pink lavatory in center hall
Wax all furniture in solarium

Saturday, Thorough Cleaning of Upstairs
Vacuum all rugs
Polish & dust furniture
Clean lavatories & bathrooms, tubs, enclosures*
Clean all mirrored surfaces in master bathroom and all mirrors in others
Clean all mirrors on closet doors and dressing room table cabinets
*get into corners

Sunday, Clean your Own Room
Also clean bathroom and back hall staircase area
Clean outside porches
Dust and straighten up
Wipe glass surfaces

- - -

3.

Dear Sir,
I'm really very sorry
but you see that I'm not the right person for the job.

I need to have my car & telephone.
You are really nice people and
I know you will fine the right person.

I've looked over the chart,
I should have looked at it much closer
when I was here last week.

I would have saved myself two taxi fare.
I know now that I should have brought my car.
Getting back to the charts,

I would not be able to do all of this work.
Because of my lower back.
I did not realize there is so much heavy work.

The duck is cook.
The d. table is set.
I could not wait until you got home

because you are very sweet people.
And this is really hard for me.
I hope you will fine someone real soon.

P.S. I also forgot to tell you,
a very important problem.
I sleep walk.

return to the holiday menu

About the author:
Helen Klein Ross' most recent work has appeared in The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Progressive Grocer, The J. Peterman Catalog and those little signs they're putting above urinals now. Her work rarely runs with a byline, however. Which is so unfair. Just because it is advertising.

About the artist:
Amy Bay received her BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and her MFA from Winchester School of Art in Barcelona, Spain and Winchester, England. She has received grants from Dieu Donne Papermill, Women's Studio Workshop, and the Lower East Side Printshop and has shown her work both nationally and internationally. She lives and works in Brooklyn.