Those of you who have been reading for awhile know that I have some trouble with maids, and I don't understand why. I am not a tyrant. I am really easy going. I never complain. Well, except with that one, but I was totally entitled. And yet, my maids keep leaving me. Okay, at least two have gotten better paying, full-time jobs with health benefits, so I really can't blame them. But I still feel like I have done something wrong. And to make matters worse, no one tells you they are leaving. It's not the Mexican way. Telling me would hurt my feelings, and that would be unacceptable. So they just don't show up, and I have to figure out for myself that there was no emergency or they aren't sick – they just aren't coming back. That usually takes a couple of weeks, during which time my house gets dreadfully dirty.

I have made no secret of the fact that I am an abysmal housekeeper. I find no joy in making things clean. Don't get me wrong, I do find joy in having it clean, I just don't like to do it myself. I sure as heck don't find it rewarding. That's why I hire someone. I blame my parents.

My parents are the neat freaks of the century. They are not average neat freaks. They are over-achieving, freaky freaks. Anyone who knows them will tell you I am not exaggerating just because I am their daughter and grew up in their freaky clean house.

My father vacuums the house twice a day. The whole house. And he puts the vacuum cleaner away after each use. He doesn't leave it out just because he will be using it again in a few hours. He actually uses a remote control organizer.

My mother washes, cleans and organizes everything. She even does all of the baseboards and blinds twice a month. A single dirty glass is never left in the sink. When I go to their house, I usually toss my purse and keys on the kitchen counter. Within seconds, my purse is put in the designated purse drawer and my keys are hung on the key hook.

They have a thick binder for each room of the house with see-through pocket pages. Whenever they buy any type of appliance or electronics – big or small - they staple the receipt to the warranty information and put the warranty stuff and manual in a sleeve in the appropriate binder. Whenever they get rid of an item, they remove the corresponding material from the binder. It's really handy when you are trying to find something, and much more efficient than my large, cardboard warranty box, but come on, no one should be that organized.

My mother called me very excited one day. She had just been watching one of those shows on HGTV. I don't know why I remember this, but Heloise was on. Heloise introduced my mother to a concept called "5 minutes or 5 things". The idea is that you spend 5 minutes a day organizing your junk drawer or throw 5 things away. My mother thought I would benefit greatly from this. Here's the thing: my mother actually does it. If you go into her house and open her "junk" drawer, you will find a highly organized, neat space with everything in it's place. It drives me nuts.

I have always had a rebellious soul. I think growing up around all that organization and neatness warped me for life. I need a little chaos in order to thrive. So my house gets dirty. Either that or I am lazy, which is totally probable, but I prefer the more artistic explanation.

All of this is the long way around to telling you about my current maid. A few weeks ago, I sought out my neighbor Monica. She used to clean my house and left me for a better job. She actually told me she was leaving – in advance – and told me she had a friend she would recommend to replace her. My original maid, Lupita, was available, so I told her no thank you. But now I needed a maid, so I wanted to ask Monica about her friend.

Instead of hooking me up with her friend, Monica called into the house to her niece, Cecilia. She asked Cecilia if she wanted to clean my house. Cecilia said yes. That's all fine and good, but I was never consulted in this, and I wasn't sure I wanted Cecilia to clean my house.

Don't misunderstand me. I like Cecilia. She is a very nice girl. She is sweet and good-hearted and disarmingly shy. And she just turned 18. But that isn't why I was unsure of her. She's also a model.

That's right. Model. And I don't mean a Pacifico girl or a LaLa girl or one of those hired to hand out flyers at street corners. I mean model in the sense that she is so beautiful that people pay her to take her picture and publish it.

I'm all for equal opportunity and anti-discrimination, but really? a model? But I was stuck. Cecilia had already been asked and said yes. How was I supposed to explain that I didn't want her cleaning my house because she it too beautiful? Plus, my house was pretty disgusting. So, in one of my top 10 "what was I thinking?" moments, I said sure, great, when do you want to come?

So the next morning Cecilia arrived at the appointed time to start cleaning. I cringed: cute little pink t-shirt, short, but not immodest, pink plaid shorts, and matching pink Puma sneakers. I did a mental eye roll, but smiled brightly and welcomed her in.

She got straight to work and began setting my house to rights. Bending, stretching, reaching, and developing a fetching glow but never actually sweating. Chuck quickly surveyed the situation and gallantly locked himself in his office, never to emerge, for the entire time she was there.

Much to my chagrin, she worked hard and did an excellent job. She moved all of the furniture, changed the sheets, folded the clean clothes, folded the dirty clothes (and placed them in a separate pile), she even washed all the doors and managed to remove the very last of the Pepe marks, which I didn't think could be removed.

So I now have a model maid. I am still not 100% okay with it. It's a personal failing, I know. And Chuck still locks himself in his office.