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Twelve years ago, I came to the United States. I had a friend who
worked in Beverly Hills as a housekeeper. One day she called me and said,
¡° I have to go to the airport to pick up my friend and can you fill in
for me today?¡± I said, ¡°I don't speak English and how can I do for
you?¡± She said, ¡°I only need you for two hours from 2:00-4:00 p.m. and
during that time you don¡¯t have to do anything only if they need you
then they will call.¡± I thought two hours would be okay, so I went
there.
It was a big
beautiful house. I walked along the cobblestone road that led to it and
looked around the living room. There was a lot of art and inspiring
architecture.
I was really enjoying it.
The owner of the house was a tall American lady, whose body was
perfectly spherical and which was surmounted by another small sphere that
was her head. Her arms were
exuberant with rounded flesh and creased joints at the wrists like a
doll¡¯s. Her plump,
miniature hands were covered with rings.
She gave the impression that she had been blown up with a bicycle
pump and with another blow she would have burst. She spoke very fast English. I couldn¡¯t catch even a single
word. My friend left and I
felt terribly nervous. I sat on the sofa and tried to watch TV, but I
couldn't concentrate. I prayed that the lady wouldn't come to talk to me. Unfortunately,
she came to me and gave me a bowl of soup said something to me and left. The soup looked so good, green
beans, red carrots and something yellow. Half an hour later a man came, he
went to the kitchen, looked into the refrigerator as if he were looking
for something and left. The lady came to me again and she was talking to
me with her hands. I
didn¡¯t understand what she was talking about. Then I realized that she
probably was asking me about the soup and I told her that I had eaten it.
But she couldn¡¯t understand me. Her hands signed the bowl again and I
pointed to my mouth and trying to express that I had eaten it. Finally she understood and
she was very upset. She
indicated with her hands that she had wanted me to keep the soup in the
refrigerator because she had wanted to save it for her husband, but I had
eaten it.
Her husband asked me to mow the lawn,
but I shook my hands, trying to tell him that I didn¡¯t know how to use
the machine. The man said to
me, ¡°Easy, look!¡± He
showed me once and I thought it was easy, too. I saw him only use his foot
to push the one button. So I took the machine and did the same as the man
had done. The machine moved
fast and the cut grass came out the side.
I felt so great and proud of myself. As soon as I have done the work, I
went to the living room and signed with my hands that I had finished. The man went to the garden with
me. Suddenly, he screamed and
shouted, ¡° What did you do? Damn!¡± I didn't know what had happened and
just the time my friend walked in. The
man was very angry and he pointed at me said to my friend, ¡° Take her
home, I had better open a school to teach her how to do everything, look!
She ate my soup and she cut of my good grass and left bad grass there. You
know how much I paid for that grass? Ten
thousand dollars! Damn! His hand hit his knees and made a very big noise.
He looked at sky and said, ¡° My God!"
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