I'm not sure how I feel about that. Not true-- I do know how I feel about that.

I feel conflicted.

On the one hand, it's great to have someone to clean, especially since, thanks to my beloved, yet extremely neurotic mother, my standards are high, but, alas, my ambition is low. I just don't like doing it. And she is fast and doing a far better job than I either could or would. Last I saw, for example, she was cleaning the mirrored wall that surrounds the fireplace.

I have lived in this apartment for two and a half months, and I've never cleaned that mirror. Hey, there were no visible streaks or marks, it was fine as it was. Then again, now it's not a warm, yellowish-brown color.

People who smoke ought to clean any form of glass on a regular basis, you know?

As much as I try, I am neither fast nor efficient in the cleaning department. I have my moments-- I've oiled and restored all the wood in this apartment since moving in, for example. But I'm better with big projects than the daily minutiae. Our apartment is always tidy, glass tabletops cleaned, toilet clean, bathroom superficially clean, swiffed, vacuumed. On closer inspection, however, it's not so good. Mom would never buy it.

Not that Mom's ever come to visit me in Europe. She's scared of flying, for a start. And when I lived in Dallas, the two times she put a Herculean effort into ignoring the state of my house. The telltale signs were there, but she said nothing because I was working at least sixty hours a week.

Ironically, I couldn't afford a maid then. Now I can, and I don't really see why I need one, apart from the fact that someone needs to clean properly. I don't have children to look after, and I don't really have a job, or at least none that pay. My job, when you get right down to it, is being a wife. Yes, I do volunteer work. I cook (usually). I translate things and deal with bureaucracy and do all the other piddly-ass things that need to be done when you're an expat.

I can't justify having a maid. Never could, so I've never had one before. I suppose it's a sort of reverse snobbery.

I want someone to clean for me, but I don't want a maid.

Socially, European countries are different. Everyone has a maid, or seems to. In Italy, people were appalled that I didn't have one. They just couldn't seem to figure it out. I would explain that I only had a one bedroom apartment, that we had no children, that I didn't have a job outside the home. This, if anything, seemed to confuse them more.

My Italian teacher, for example, had no money. She was divorced, lived in a tiny, somewhat decrepit apartment with her daughter in a not too nice area of town. She hadn't bought new clothing of any sort in years. Yet, she had a maid.

I shook my head at the priorities of others, and gave my apartment a good going over when the cat-hair tumbleweeds started escaping from behind the shelving units.

Since moving to Portugal, the pressure has gotten even more intense. People are not just stunned and a bit appalled that I don't have one, but they've been questioning my social and moral obligations. Maid-hood is not just a job here, but seems to have an honarable sort of career status. Women are proud of being a good maid. (Gender equality doesn't seem to have hit the housekeeping profession.) People brag about how good their maids are, and jealously guard against poaching. Maids seem to be more like part of the family than an employee. Their lives are the subject of gossip and solicitous concern among their "employers". In fact, maids expect you to take an interest in their lives. If you do not, they wonder how they've offended you, and think that maybe you don't really appreciate them and care for them the way you should. Or so I've been told.

The barmaid at the Pub, who seems to spend an inordinate amount of time arguing with her husband everytime he comes in about why he's not out there earning some money and where's the twenty Euros you owe me, has a maid.

Women of every nationality have been chiding me for my unexplicable failure to have a maid. I can afford one. I have a three bedroom apartment. I have a duty to hire a maid. How would the honorable empregadas of the world going to earn an honest living if everyone was selfishly refusing to hire them, like me?

Yep. I am being selfish. You have the wealth, Baby. Go distribute it.

Last week, the wife of a man who works with Elvis hired a maid, on the sole strength of absolutely hating to do housework. The maid is a Brazilian, lives in the same building as them, right around the corner from us. This girl lives with a family and works mornings: afternoons, she is free to go out and earn more money to make a better life for herself.

The wife gave her my number, and she called this week. She couldn't have hit me at a better time, in fact, because I was fed up with my seeming lack of time and, quite frankly, resentful of having to do housework. Let's face it, I didn't spend years at the University, racking up degrees, to spend my life having a deep meaningful relationship with a mop and a packet of swiffers. Yes, I did give it all up to get married, but shouldn't that also entail a better quality of life?

The fact that it has, does, and will continue to do, even without a maid, fled from my mind at that point. And then I started wondering about how long we'll be able to do this. If we go back to the States, I'll have to get a job and we probably won't be able to afford a maid, either. Shouldn't I at least be able to have a maid while I still can?

It's amazing what little journeys your mind takes when it's trying to talk your heart into something.

The maid wants to learn English: she speaks nothing but Portuguese. I'm learning Portuguese, but need all the practice I can get. Another tick in the "pros" column.

And get this: having her come in for five hours a week for a month costs less than renting a car for one weekend.

Which doesn't seem right to me, but I checked around and it's the going rate.

Another wife of a co-worker hired her as well. She is from South America, and they have a different view on this sort of thing. She also has a toddler and is heavily pregnant, and therefore really needs one. She says we're lucky: this girl hasn't been here long, and will be snapped up pronto if we don't ask fast.

This country is lousy with maids, but good ones are very difficult to find.

So I talked it over with Elvis, and we now have a maid.

I suppose that means I have to cook more. I can deal with that.

I actually like to cook.