I started work young – thirteen I think. Chambermaid at the Redwood Motel. It did not go so well. In fact I hated it. While others, including my sister, seemed to gain pleasure from making the bathroom shine, I would wipe it down with the dirty towels that were lying about and then jump onto the king sized bed, pry open the Magic Fingers to snag a few quarters, pop them back in so I wouldn’t be stealing, turn on the color TV and ride.
The job was calculated at thirty minutes to a room – 14 rooms in a day, that’s how I remember it – leaving 30 minutes for loading and unloading our carts. Eleanor, the Head Housekeeper, stood sentry during the unloading process to prevent theft. I still lived at home so I was not as tempted as others to steal toilet paper and cleaning products; in fact, it did not even occur to me.
But I did love to steal time. 10 minutes for the room, 20 minutes for me – that was my formula. While I may have gone home with a few extra quarters in my pocket, I mostly used them. I don’t so much recall enjoying the jiggling buzzing magic fingers as I liked the idea of getting paid to lie in a bed that was working while I watched TV.
I was worked hard at home; cleaning, washing dishes, ironing, barn chores. At home, I felt like a slave. I would tie a bandana on my head in silent protest to the indoor work and I would eat the thumbs off my mittens as the outdoor version. While neither seemed to garner the appropriate attention from my owners, they both made me feel better.
But at work at the Redwood Motel, well that was a different story. The rooms were small and tight and my mother wasn’t going around behind checking to see if I’d vacuumed underneath things. It was exciting to be in the city in a motel. Growing up in a farm town, I had spent little time in Burlington and had never stayed in a motel. I thought motels were mostly for prostitutes and so I would imagine the sordid commerce that had taken place hours before my arrival.
It was one day while engrossed in this very scenario that I must have slipped off and not come back until the Head Housekeeper was standing by the bed as I opened my eyes. I was disoriented at first thinking that this was my mother yelling at me that I was going to be late for school but something was off as I threw the unfamiliar covers off me and sat up. Eleanor had a clipboard in her hands and her look told me I would always be a disappointment as a homemaker.
My next job was at a box factory. I stood on a step stool, as I had not gotten my height yet, feeding corrugated paper into a crimping machine. The work suited me better than chambermaid but they were long days and bad smelling from the chemicals and the men. We started at 7am and went until 5pm with two breaks, ten minutes at 10 am and 30 minutes at noon. Other than break time and machine repair, I had to stand there; reach, fold, push forward, reach, fold, push forward.
But there were times when I would close my eyes and imagine myself laying in the bed at the Redwood Motel, being tended to by magic fingers.
