My Helper Needs a Personal Emergency Response System, Methinks

A series of incidents in my maid’s life in the last 48 hours gave me something to blog about today.

First it was her brother. The poor man for some reason that I wish not to dwell on, attempted to end his life. 48 hours back, he was found frothing in his mouth, curled up on the roadside, apparently looking dead to passers by. Turns out that he had picked up some rat poison and mixed it in a bottle of liquor and had chugged on it. The hospital to which he was taken to, refused to treat him until they had the evidence of the choice of poison. When they did, they pumped the contents of his stomach out. Now he is busy explaining the stupidity of his action to the police.

Then it was her. Within the next 24 hours of the disturbing incident, she developed some kind of itchy rash on her scalp. When I investigated, I found out that she had used a hair colouring product a few days back. She had stayed with the dye in her hair for over three hours and the Paraphenylenediamine gave her the resultant allergic contact dermatitis! She took a day off to consult the doctor who gave her antihistamines, antacids, pain killers, vitamin supplements and a huge bill.

This morning it was her son. She had barely gotten to work and had filled me in on what the doctor had advised, when she received a call from someone in her family. The next thing I knew, she had dropped the phone and had begun wailing. I imagined the worst. Had her brother figured out another way to end his life? It was far worse than that. Her youngest son, who had dropped her off at work on his bike, had met with an accident on his way back home. How much more depressing could her life get? I ordered her to leave immediately, I pressed some money into her palm and requested my man Friday to give her a ride home. I waited to hear an update on the damage and wondered if the boy survived the accident.

When the driver (he doubles up as my man Friday) came back he filled me in on the updates. The son had survived the accident with a few scars on his ear and no damage to the bike. The mom and son were reunited and were at their home, calm and safe.

I uttered an Hallelujah and went about cleaning the floor with my Rainbow System.