A new year and a run-in with the maid

Wow, I can't believe we are in 2010, 10 years since the millennium, absolutely nuts! I hope to get better this year at all this blogging nonsense....I had great intentions, but I failed. Please forgive me.

We had a FANTASTIC Christmas and birthday with Samantha, crazy to believe she is ONE. She is a pro-walker now and keeps us busy. In no time, we'll be having conversations with her. Until then, I will spoil her and enjoy this time when she is still my baby. I haven't accepted the fact yet that I have a toddler. Seriously!?

Need some opinions on this next topic. Back in November we did our neighborhood garage sale, and we sold a TON of clothes! Thank goodness because the amount we had was insane. So with the holidays and being busy, I never got around to taking the rest of the clothes to goodwill. Randy took his, but I wanted to go through mine, as some were work clothes that I wanted to donate to Dressing for Success, or some type of charity like that. Plus, others still had tags, and who knows, maybe I would just keep them for next year's sale, since they were such a huge hit. So, back to the story....the clothes were sitting on a sofa in a back room. Our maid came this past Thursday, she is absolutely wonderful and we have no negative things to say about her. We got a call from her that evening and Randy talked to her. She said she meant to leave us a note (neither of us was at home when she was there), that she had gone through my clothes and taken some, including a leather jacket, which was in tip-top shape. She wanted to know how much she owed us, and if we wanted her to bring the leather jacket back. And she commented that she knew "I'd be taking them to goodwill anyway". Then she mentioned she had taken 30 items! Randy told her we'd call her back because he obviously knew this was something he needed my input on.

One, we were shocked that she did that in the first place. We would have thought she would have called us and asked if she could go through the clothes, before taking them. It was as if she was asking for forgiveness after the fact, rather than asking for permission. Anywho, not knowing what she took (again, I had many nice, expensive work clothes, clothes with tags, etc.), we decided, OK, let's say it's $2 per item (a steal!) and $15 for the leather jacket, which is in great condition. That came to $75 which I thought was a great deal, much less than we would get for taking them to goodwill and itemizing them on our tax return. But, hey, she's our maid, we like her a lot. $75 is actually what we pay her, so Randy called her back and said that ok, you can keep the clothes, so how about you clean our house for free next time? Her response was, "Oh, that is way too much.....I thought Susan was just going to take them to goodwill..." Then Randy said, well no, if we take them to goodwill, we can itemize and get $$$ on our tax return for next year. Seemed she didn't understand that concept. So, think there were a few comments back and forth, and then Randy just said, ok, well just bring the clothes back if you're not willing to pay that amount.

So, are we out of line???? I mean, I know her family obviously needs $$$ and clothes more than we do, but she took 30 items! If it was 5 or 6, ok....have them, they are yours. And the leather jacket, maybe I would have asked for $10 or something. But, 30 items!?! And then telling us that $75 was too much!! I have no idea what she took (work clothes, brand new clothes, etc.), since she took before asking, but we thought $2 per item was very reasonable.

I kind of feel bad for asking her to bring the clothes back, but she didn't even counter-offer and say, ok, how about I give you this amount?? It was as if, she thought we would let her have them for free.

So, what would you have done? Anxiously awaiting your comments, haha. ;-)

Til next time....