There was a time when I waited for Sunday. After a week of work, and I worked hard, a day of rest was very welcome. I loved to sleep. I am not an atheist, and I go to church maybe once a year for midnight mass on Christmas eve. So I'm not a churchgoer basically. Therefore Sundays did not mean that I was seated in the pews in church listening to the pastor's sermon. The pastor, in fact, would not recognise me until my sister, who goes more often to church, introduced me as her brother after Christmas Eve mass. I also had a problem sleeping and would lie awake at nights trying desperately trying to fall asleep. I tried counting sheep and it never worked. I also tried those sleeping videos on YouTube. I listened \ and felt bored. They were not music I was familiar with and they kept my eyelids firmly apart. Even a safe tranquillizer that my doctor prescribed did not have any effect. The only thing to do then was to switch on
"Why didn't you tell me before?" asked the new maid confronting me.
"Tell you what?" I asked.
"Don't put on that innocent look!" she said sharply.
"After sixty all men return to the Age of Innocence," I replied candidly.
"Haven't I seen them all!" the new maid said contemptuously.
"You must have good eyesight!" I said appreciatively.
"I also have eyes in the back of my head when I work for duffers like you," she said mockingly.
"I resent being called a duffer; at the most, I dodder and dawdle," I replied annoyed.
"But why didn't you tell me earlier?" she admonished.
"That I dodder and dawdle?" I asked.
"No! No!" She cried, "You must have been doing that since the age of two."
"Certainly not, I only tottered at fifty-nine and began to dodder and dawdle when I slipped on a banana peel two years later," I protested.
"And then you entered the Age of Reason!" the new maid said tauntingly.
"I don't like history when it repeats itself," I said gruffly.
"Enough! Now tell me why you didn't tell me?" she asked.
"Tell you what?" I asked puzzled.
"That there are ghosts here!" she cried.
"I have heard the Ghost in The Machine," I said slowly.
"I am not speaking about The Police," she said mincingly.
"How do the police come into this?" I asked surprised.
"They will shortly," she replied with a nod.
"I doubt it! I lost the Police CD long ago," I replied.
"No wonder you fired the old maid," she said.
"I did not fire her; she has gone home to be with her cat for awhile. She had kittens."
"Your maid had kittens!"
"Don't they teach anything in school these days?" I asked exasperatedly.
"Everything, except for going to work for duffers like you," she said spitefully.
"It's dodders, not duffers!" I cried, "Can't you get it right?"
"But you said your maid had kittens!" She countered.
"Her kitten had cats!" I shouted.
"They did!" the maid replied shaking her head wonderingly.
"Did you call me?" asked the cat appearing on the scene.
"No we were speaking about kittens," I said.
"Whose kittens?" the cat asked suspiciously.
"Actually we were speaking about dodders," I said.
"I know that you dodder," the cat said nodding.
"But the new maid said that I dawdled," I said complaining.
"Oh! You mustn't say such things," the cat told the new maid.
"You have ghosts here and now your cat talks!" the maid ejaculated, "You will have to give me a raise if you want me to stay!"
"Stay by all means," the ghost said drifting in.
"Who are you?" asked the maid backing away.
"Just the household spook," it said amiably.
"I was right," the cook said, "This is a ghoulish place!"
"Certainly not, there are no ghouls here!" I snapped.
"A hair-raising place needs a consequent rise in wages," the new maid pointed out.
"Do you think I mint money?" I asked angrily.
"Then what do you do, you skinflint?" the new maid shot back.
"She just called me a skinflint!" I cried in agony to the cat and the ghost.
"He is certainly not a miser," said the ghost.
"He hoards chocolates to polish his false teeth, but that doesn't make him Scrooge," the cat said.
"Did Charles Dickens like chocolate?" I wondered.
"But he was not scared of ghosts," the spook said.
"He wrote 'A Christmas Carol'," the cat pointed out.
"Just one?" I asked, "Couldn't have been very talented."
"Are you giving me a raise or not?" asked the maid butting in.
"I can't say," I said sadly, "the cook makes such decisions."
"Then call the cook," she said.
"Man shall not live by cooking alone," I said wisely.
"The cook's not here," the cat piped in.
"Where is she?" asked the new maid.
"She is in the kitchen," I said.
"Cooking your goose," the ghost added.
"But I only wanted a raise!" the new maid exclaimed.
"It will certainly be hair-raising for you," the spook proclaimed.
"Just a raise will do," she said, "Don't let's split hairs anymore."
"It'll be better if you split," the cat said kindly.
"I'm not splitting my wages with anyone," the new maid cried shaking her head vigorously.
"I've got a splitting headache listening to all your backchat," I cried.
"Then split," the ghost told the new maid before dramatically splitting in two and receding to two opposite corners of the room.
"My goose is cooked!" the new maid howled and vanished into thin air.
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