"What vacuum cleaner?" I said to my new handy-woman Pepper Fox.
She gave me a blank look.
"I got rid of it four years ago when I got a job."
Her eyebrows raised slightly and she said,
"You don't own a vacuum cleaner?"
I looked back at her and said,
"When I got a job I got a cleaning lady and she vacuums."
Pepper looked doubtfully at my carpet which had about
three gallons of orange cat hair strewn everywhere.
"I can only afford her every other week." I said slightly guiltily.
I went on to tell her what I had learned from Alexander-McCall Smith
through his character, Isabel Dalhousie, in his book,
"The Sunday Philosophers Club."
Pepper stared at me with mild disbelief that I would alter my life from some
fictional book I read so I explained myself. "According to Isabel Dalhousie,
people with jobs are obligated to hire people with jobs that help them."
I walked over to the tiny apron cupboard and pulled out the broom
and handed it to her and said with a smile,
"Here you go. "
She took the broom and said to me with a gleam in her eye,
"I think this thing will hold both of us."
