Ghosts
The very first mention of ghosts in the book is when the writer uses the metaphor in connection with the lost remnants of childhood. The imagery recurs throughout the book in relation to a number of such references. Port Townsend is “a near ghost town.” Sounds heard through thin walls and ceilings are a “ghostlike toilet flush and chair moving across the floor.” The imagery is self-referential in a number of ways as well from feeling like a “nameless ghost” in her job cleaning other people’s houses to chasing after the ghost of the person she was before falling on hard times.
The Move-Out
That job in which she works for a maid service specializing in deep cleaning several houses brings on a number of memorable examples of imagery. One of the most effective is the description of the special case of the “move out” type of cleaning:
“Move-out cleans are deceptive…Most often, the owner has decided to sell, after the house has been rented and gone without regular cleaning for years. In these homes, a film of dusty grease, like rubber cement, covers the kitchen. The floors around the toilets are stained yellow; hair is embedded in all the crevices. Each time you wipe a surface, the original color is revealed, which makes the remaining discolored surfaces look even dirtier.”
Snooping
The particular type of maid service which employs the author is one in which she usually or at least often enjoys unsupervised access to the home. Eventually, a number of different elements combine to form a rationale for snooping rather than outright cleaning:
“I began looking through the rapidly growing stashes of alcohol, hidden chocolate, unopened bags from the mall that remained untouched for months. I became intrigued by understanding how people coped. I snooped because I was bored, and, in a way, it became my own coping mechanism…Despite being wealthy and having the two-story houses of our American dreams—the marbled-sink bathrooms, the offices with bay windows looking out at the water—their lives still lacked something.”
The Tax Refund
While the fine folks who head up Amazon struggle to find ways to survive on not paying any taxes at all, the author reveals how much a $4,000 refund coming courtesy of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit can transform the daily experience of living for some people literally overnight. You go to bed one night without and wake up to the welcome sight of four addition numerals in your bank account the next day allowing you to suddenly be with some of those things you had to go without:
“The night the tax refund money hit my account...We went to the store and filled the cart with food we normally couldn’t afford: avocados, tomatoes, frozen berries for pancakes. I bought a bottle of wine. Over the next week, I bought a frame and a full-sized mattress and a heated pad so I didn’t have to heat the whole room at night. I found insulating curtains and cheap rods on clearance. I bought Mia a kid-sized trampoline for her to jump on instead of the couch and bed.”
