Posts Tagged ‘Taffy the maid’

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“Patience, grasshopper.”

Thursday, August 25th, 2011

By Tiber

As the sun is guaranteed to rise in the east, our maid, Taffy, has had another “unfortunate event,” as Mrs. Brunty, the housekeeper, calls them.

We all know, of course, that Taffy is just one of those people out of sync with the Universe.

Remember when she got her foot stuck in her mouth?

Remember when that fish fell out of the sky and shattered her windshield? It’s true that a bird could have dropped the fish on Taffy but I still maintain that God may have just thrown it at her.

She’s seems really nice to me but who knows how these things work. The reality is that all bad things happen to Taffy.

This time, she was attacked by a fighting grasshopper.

What?!?

Of course, Taffy did most of the work for him. He just kept throwing himself at her face and her hair and she then threw herself into a tree trunk, a lawn chair and the ground, trying to swat him away.

The question remains, however, why would any normally peaceful little grasshopper come at her at all? Why do any of these weird-ass things happen to Taffy?

If I’d known about this particular “unfortunate event” in advance, I would have spoken to the grasshopper beforehand and told him to forget it, that he didn’t have to fight so far out of his weight class.

He’s probably glad now that I didn’t. He’ll be out there forever, wherever grasshoppers congregate, bragging over and over again, about the day when he took down a one hundred and ten pounder.

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Missing your monkey

Monday, May 30th, 2011

 

By Tiber　

To summarize some recent events:

The animal park lost a monkey who ended up here lost in our house.

We couldn’t find him for quite awhile.

Taffy, the maid, was depressed because a guy had broken up with her and Gabby, another maid, thought that Taffy was crawling into bed with her at night because she couldn’t bear to be alone.

It wasn’t Taffy coming into Gabby‘s room, though. It turned out to be the monkey.

And the animal park people came and took him home.

Now I’ve heard that both Taffy and Gabby are depressed.

I know why.

I’ve heard about the guys they go out with. and I guarantee you, that monkey was better looking, more reliable, less idiotic and had a much more mature sense of humor than any of them.

They should have gotten his phone number.

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Posted in Animals, Gabby-maid#1, Taffy-maid#2 | No Comments »

Bedtime for Bonzo

Saturday, May 21st, 2011

By Tiber

We finally found the monkey that’s been loose in our house and the animal park people came and took him back.

They said he looked good and I guess he could have lived here forever if he’d only kept a slightly lower profile.

My parents’ maid, Taffy, ( to whom all bad things happen) recently had the guy she‘d been dating leave town.  He said he had to go to Switzerland to attend “luge school.” Seriously, dude? “Luge school?!?” Of course, someday he’ll show up as a gold medal winner in the Olympics and I’ll be the ass.

In any event, he left and Taffy’s been really depressed and lonely so the other maid, Gabby, didn’t complain when Taffy kept eating the snacks Gabby keeps in her room as well as crawling into bed with her late at night.

Even so, Gabby was only going to put up with it for one more night when she happened to look out her door and see Taffy walking down the hall and not lying next to her in bed at all.

So we found the monkey!

Personally, after sleeping with him for so long, I think I’d have myself sandblasted. But I guess we’ll leave that up to Gabby.

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The cheese stands alone

Sunday, March 13th, 2011

By Tiber

It’s probably better not to know everything that goes on over in the staff wing here at my parents’ house. What we do hear about is weird enough.

We’ve wondered before if maybe the Universe just doesn’t like Taffy, the maid. Remember when she got the hiccups last year and then they wouldn’t stop? Remember when she was out driving and a fish fell out of the sky and shattered her windshield?

Now Taffy has broken her toe. Of course, this one happens to lots of people but not like this.

The reason given was that she had been “chasing some cheese and she fell and skidded into a streamer trunk.”

First of all, “chasing some cheese?!?” Knowing Cook’s temper, nobody would have questioned it at all if Taffy had been “fleeing from some cheese.” But “chasing” it?

Second of all, who has a steamer trunk anymore? Did Taffy also skid through a time warp where she momentarily ended up in 1910 on the deck of the Lusitania? If the Universe doesn’t like you, I guess anything is possible.

The Universe being out to get her does keep her employed, however. She has Mom’s sympathy and Mom not only will never fire her, but she was the one who drove Taffy, through a heavy rainstorm, over to see the doctor in town.

It’s more than she would have done for any of us. Duncan used to be convinced that Mom was part Native American shape-shifter – because every time one of her kids would do something stupid, she had this amazing ability, just like mist, to suddenly disappear.

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“Look into my cake. You’re getting very sleepy.”

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011

By Tiber

When we were kids, Cook would make us these great birthday cakes, where each piece had a little wrapped-up charm in it that was supposed to tell your fortune. A coin meant that money was coming, a little ball meant you were getting on a sports team, that sort of thing. It was fun, even though we didn’t give it much thought later on.

This week, for the housekeeper Mrs. Brunty’s birthday, Cook made a charm cake for her and every member of the staff got a piece of it.

Gabby got the heart charm and two days later, a new guy asked her out. Mrs. Brunty got the coin and one day later, she got an insurance refund.

Brunty, the butler, got the four-leaf clover. And he had some good luck immediately when he suddenly changed course in the hallway and thus avoided being mowed down by the dogs, who flew in, playing a lethal game of snout-hockey with their Justin Bieber doll. (You can really get your fangs into those bangs!)

Taffy, the maid, had gotten the little fruit bowl charm. This was meant to signify some extra sweet snacks, I guess, but since Taffy is perpetually attacked by the Universe, in her case, it just meant that she ran into the doorframe of the pantry and a can of peaches fell on her head.

Still, this time, all of Cook’s cake charms had come true! And Taffy has become completely unhinged by this.

She’s afraid that Cook has developed some kind of dangerous power with desserts.

Hearing what Cook was making for the family last night, Taffy tried everything she could to foil her.

It didn’t work and we all ate Cook’s delicious Baked Alaska anyway. Now, though, Taffy is convinced that, by dawn, we’re all magically going to wake up in Anchorage. And we’re all going to be stoned.

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Sorry, Charlie

Sunday, December 19th, 2010

By Tiber

As you know, my parents’ housekeeper, Mrs. Brunty, has been worried that Dad would fire one of the maids due to the economic crunch. Then, she read how when the great writer Shirley Jackson’s husband didn’t like her getting so many cats, she just starting adopting cats who were all the same color and her husband never knew how many of them they actually had.

So Mrs. Brunty did the same sort of thing and, for quite awhile now, she’s had all three maids wearing identical wigs, in the hopes that Dad wouldn’t remember how many he’s still paying,

Today, though, Dad actually confronted Mrs. Brunty about it and Dad hates confronting Mrs. Brunty about anything. She is always “Mrs. Brunty,” even to Dad, by the way. She is always Mrs. Brunty even to her husband, Mr. Brunty. Mom thinks it shows a real old-world respect. I always think it shows why there are no little Bruntys.

But back to the maids in wigs!

Dad told Mrs. Brunty that he respected her efforts and he was doing everything possible not to fire any of the girls  but he did know there were three of them so they could stop wearing the wigs.

Actually, he said, it was having the opposite effect to what Mrs. Brunty intended because it made Dad feel that every time he looked up, the “same“ maid was doing all the work, while the other two were off having a smoke or something.

“Oh, dear!” cried Mrs. Brunty.

So the wigs came off immediately and Taffy, for one, was thrilled. Taffy, accident-prone in the best of times, claimed that the short, dark, wig was turning her into another person entirely, one who fell down even more and looked goofy in the process.

I laughed and said, “Yes, I thought you were looking more and more like The Little Tramp!”

Taffy burst into tears, ran away and later had to be coaxed out of the broom closet.

I was talking about Charlie Chaplin, of course, but I can see how she may not have taken it that way.

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Putting your foot in your mouth is right down my alley

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010

By Tiber

If you’re ever feeling bad about your life, remember there are people out there like my parents’ maid, Taffy. The Universe is clearly out to get her or maybe her purpose here really is to make others feel better about their own lot.

As you know, Taffy has gotten hiccups that wouldn’t stop,  had her hair caught in a high wall sconce and was almost killed by a fish that somehow fell  out of the sky and smashed her windshield.

This time, she got her foot stuck in her mouth. Literally.

Was there a bet involved? A scientific experiment? A lack of lunchmeat? That crucial detail we never learned over here in the family wing.

A doctor was called but he said it might be awhile before he arrived because he was attending to some “important cases.” I would have put “foot stuck in your mouth” right near the top of “important cases” but evidently, it’s farther down the list than I thought.

Anyway, in hopes of cheering Taffy up, one of the security guys said, “Wow, you’re kind of stuck in the shape of a big bowling ball. While we wait, you wanna play?”

My response would have been more, I don’t know, venomous, but Taffy just gamely replied, (around her foot), “Okuh.”

They grabbed a bunch of items from the kitchen and set them up as bowling pins.

And Taffy was carefully but firmly rolled down the butler’s hall towards them. They couldn’t really get her up to optimum speed so it took a few tries but on about the fifth one, she did manage  to knock down every “pin” – which also knocked her foot out of her mouth.

When the doctor was told not to come, he asked what had worked on Taffy. “A strike,” he was told and, not surprisingly, he said that he really didn’t think violence had been necessary.

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It was Duncan, in the maze, with the mallet……..When butlers are beaned, you’re Clueless

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010

By Tiber

We have  a big hedge maze out behind the house. You can legitimately get lost in it, which is why we often give people glasses and a bottle of wine. Might as well enjoy yourself while you’re waiting to be rescued. Of course, adding liquor to the mix, who knows what’s gone on behind those high “shrubbies,” as our gardener, Nestor, persists in calling them.

Some of my parents’ oldest friends, who know their way out of the maze, took some newer friends in for a look last night. And when they came back to the house, they said, “You’re getting us in the mood to play ‘Clue’ tonight, aren’t you?” – which made no sense to my parents.

It turned out they were referring to “who killed the butler, in the maze, with the croquet mallet.” Eventually, this was determined not to be “Clue” at all but instead, Brunty, our real butler, dead in the maze, from a croquet mallet. Thankfully, it turned out that Brunty was only beaned, in the maze, from a croquet mallet.

He’d been out there clearing away glasses from the night before, when a croquet mallet came flying over from the nearby croquet pitch and hit him on the head. He seems fine now but really, considering how he is normally, how can we be sure?

Plus, would the mallet-thrower strike again? No one knew who it was. Until captured, we were advised to just avoid the maze entirely.

Finally, it was discovered that our maid, Taffy, had seen my brother, Duncan, walking towards the croquet pitch last night, where she had then heard the simple sound of croquet balls hitting each other.

Taffy, however, in her usual special way, had decided that what she’d really heard was Duncan throwing artificial legs onto a pile to light them on fire. So she had moved along, not wanting to interrupt his mission.

Later, Duncan, who of course had only been playing croquet, had gotten frustrated with his game, and had thrown his mallet over the hedge where it ended up hitting Brunty in the maze. So the mystery was solved – except for the Taffy part.

I noticed something long ago. Other people don’t seem to live in houses like ours, where residents will, with only an ounce of information, leap to conclusions like this one where, it was believed that a family member, after having had a long and particularly busy day, had decided that out of all the ways in the world to chill, the best choice would be to construct an artificial leg pyre in the dead of night on a croquet pitch.

There is a bright side, I guess. The members of our household who so often book non-stop flights to Crazy Town are happy there.

Once Taffy had “figured out” what Duncan was doing, she had just nodded at his having his own enjoyable time and serenely went off to bed.

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Posted in Brunty the butler, My brother Duncan, Taffy-maid#2, The estate | No Comments »

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