Stuck in her creepy Isle of Man mansion, Bettie decides she needs some help around the house, but ends up going back to her roots at the local haunted hairdressers.
Finally, after weeks of tweaks, trials and tribulations, Big Frank announced that he’s settled on a launch date for his – sorry, our – online casino. But, more importantly, he’s also got his gimmick. Final inspiration came from his one and only muse, which would, of course, be me. His hook and tagline? 39-4-Ever: the world’s largest online casino for women of a delicate age. Hmm, it sounded to me like clutching at straws, but, hey, he’s the guru for all things gullible, so I let him have this one. Because, to be Anne Frank, diary, I was up to my ankles in applications for the position of maid in our crumbling ruin of a new home. You see, here it’s Halloween every fricking night of the week. Bats in the belfry? Check. Cobwebs in the cavities? Check. Possibility of George A. Romero filming his next zombie apocalypse in the cellar? Check. Check. Check.
I say ankles instead of armpits, because this being the Isle of Man, thorough and efficient Merry Maids were a little short in supply. And if you added the word ‘sane’ to that description, the number dropped to one. The name that graced the top of the only possible resumé was obviously from a dyed-in-the-wool local family with ancestors going back a million generations to Noah – and was completely unpronounceable. All I can say for sure is that it started with an ‘M’, had thirteen syllables, and featured enough diacritics to sink the Queen Mary. Still, beggars can’t be choosers, so I decided to give ‘Mona’ the benefit of my considerable doubt.
After a quick call she trotted right over, but let me tell you, first impressions were not good. Still, as my morning’s email missive from St. Oprah had focused on accentuating the positive, the best thing I can think to say is the crusty old fart certainly suited the house. Regrettably, this meant she looked like the Wicked Witch of the West’s slightly wartier sister. Caught off guard, I asked if she’d come far – which was a fairly stupid opener as we are, of course, on an island smaller than my local JCPenney Outlet back in Reno. She replied, “We’re neighbors,” yet, you know, if she’d answered, “From Salem via broomstick” I wouldn’t have batted my eyeliner.
“Why should you get the job?” I asked.
“I hate dirt,” the hatchet-faced crone replied. “It gets on me nerves.”
When I asked if she was a hard worker, she told me she worked like a Trojan, which was odd because I didn’t think the people of Troy were especially remembered for their Hoovering and dusting.
“I used to mop up at the morgue. But that was just corpses, corpses, corpses, morning, noon and night. So I set up me own business at that haunted hairdressers down the road in Ballasalla weaving discarded clippings into coasters. Did it till I lost all the feeling in both hands…”
“Stop,” I said. I’d heard enough. “Did you say, ‘hairdressers’?
