The first step toward dealing with a problem is acknowledgement of the problem. So here goes.

(Deep breath)

I am addicted to having household help.

There, I said it.

Before we left for Tunisia in August 2002, I was struggling with the fact that we were planning on hiring household help. Just about all Americans overseas do this--the help is cheap, it shrinks hassles associated with living overseas, and, using the altruism argument, it gives employment to people who wouldn’t make as much--if they could find a job at all--on the local economy. Still, there’s a certain je ne sais quoi associated with having servants.

Well, actually, je sais quoi--servants are for rich snobs.

But I was willing to give it a go, because it could potentially make life easier, and I aspire to be a rich snob. So we hired a gardener and a nanny/housekeeper. The gardener, Habib, came twice a week, watered the grass, mowed, trimmed bushes, planted flowers, replanted where we wanted and what we wanted, cleaned the patio, and washed the car. He did roughly one billion times as much yard work as I would have done, and turned our rather pathetic large yard into an incredibly nice place to be, with lovely grass and flowers. This for about 125 bucks a month.

The nanny/housekeeper, Fatima, came five mornings a week and was available at basically all other times if needed to babysit. She allowed me the freedom to do stuff on my own during the mornings, the girls loved her, and I didn’t clean the bathroom for ten months.

I was leery of the privacy invasion at first, and I was uncomfortable with my newly found position as Lord Of The Manor. But not for long. It was too cool having someone there to do the dirty work, and to help out with childcare in a reliable way. Fatima’s presence in the house was always clear, though, and I was aware that my privacy was compromised. She had her own place about a mile away, thankfully. The afternoons remained family-only, which helped a lot.

Still, I had issues. There had to be limits set. Many friends in various places have had live in help--servants who actually share their home. Not in the spare bedroom or anything like that. Usually they lived in some sort of servant’s quarters, but they could share a kitchen or something. I swore I’d never stand for that.

Or…..maybe I would. Now we are here, and the market here dictates that servants are live-in. So we have Shanthi, who worked for the American family that was in the house for three years before we moved in, and who agreed to stay on and work for us based on that family‘s recommendation. She has her own (seemingly very small) quarters that connect to our kitchen. She has her own little stove, so while she has access to the kitchen, she doesn’t really use it as far as we can tell. She comes in at 8 AM and leaves by 1 PM, unless requested otherwise, and will be available for evenings for babysitting, which is something that all parents need.

And, as awful as it sounds, I basically forget that she’s living in a little room attached to our house most of the time. It’s like we’re renting a space to someone attached to our house, but she totally has her own life, and I don’t have any idea how much she comes and goes, or what’s in her room, or anything. And that’s basically as it should be, because she’s her own person. Still, since she lives with us, sort of, it feels incredibly aristocratic to be so distant.

So I’m obviously not totally adjusted to being Lord of the Manor, but I’m getting there fast. Particularly because Shanthi is about to head off for a month-long trip to spend time at home with her teenage daughter, who is in school in Sri Lanka. In any case, we’re absolutely happy to see Shanthi off to spend a month with her daughter.

But am I going to have to wash my own breakfast dishes and sweep the floors myself, for God’s sake? Fold my own clothes? Mop? Clean bathrooms? Dust? What is this, the United States?

Christ, I’m done for. May as well put on a smoking jacket, light a pipe, hire a full-time butler, and start taking advantage of the tax cut on my dividends.