My mother often compares me to my Grandmother Long. Unfortunately, she seldom means it as a compliment. Like my grandmother, I don't much like asking for help. When help arrives, I tend not to be able to stay out of the way, but putter around it, 'helping' the help. When the help I have asked for does not do as I have asked, or worse, does not deliver on the promise exactly as was made, I can get remarkably passive-aggressive. Remarkable enough that even I am compelled to remark upon it.

Yesterday, for example, I had arranged for the woman who has sometimes cleaned for me to come and help clear the apartment. It wasn't too untidy, but with all the packing and shifting of boxes, I wanted some help doing the cupboards and floors and the (don't go in there unaccompanied) refrigerator. I haven't used this particular cleaner in a while, mainly because she is notoriously unreliable. Says she'll come on Saturday, doesn't come until Tuesday- that sort of thing. Good at cleaning, but utterly undependable. I haven't generally minded too much, because I have been living on my own, and what difference does another day or three or eight make? However, when she would say she'd come in the morning and still be here for three hours after I'd come home at night, well, that was too much. If I wanted the apartment to be cleaned while I was in it, then I would do it myself. So I did it myself, and deleted her number.

However, I know that I shouldn't do everything on my own, or get worn out, so when a (lovely generous, smoothie-providing) friend asked if there was anything else she could help with, I asked her to contact this erstwhile cleaner and ask her to come over this week to do a deep clean while I packed up the flat. The cleaner contacted me last week and arranged to come yesterday in the morning.

Now, colour me old-fashioned, but in my head, 'morning' means anytime between nine am and twelve noon. Before those hours, it is still 'early morning', and wholly unsuitable to come calling unless by prior arrangement for bacon sandwiches or mimosas. Or both. After those hours, it is the 'afternoon'. I did not mind when this woman arrived, but having said 'Monday morning', I think I was within my rights to expect her to arrive, in fact, on Monday morning.

Nine o'clock comes and goes, and I think that perhaps that she would find that a bit early to start work. No problem. But while I wait, of course, I have to begin the work. The flat needs to be packed up, and it has to be cleaned while said packing happens. So I start with the master bathroom, and scour and scrub and wash the walls and behind the toilet, and then I start on Annie's room and clear the closets and dust inside the drawers and pack some boxes and wash the bedding and mop the floor, and then I mop the floor in the second spare room so that I can start putting boxes in there, and then I pack some things in the kitchen and then start moving boxes into the spare room, and then I put things in the dryer, and then I start wondering how on earth I got so much stuff, and then I start washing the cupboards, and then I walk to the supermarket for some more boxes...

... and no sign of the cleaner. By this time, as you might expect, I am somewhat irritated. Noon has long since passed, and I have had no word from her. Someone slightly less passive aggressive might have contacted her to find out where she was, and what time she was actually coming. But no. I kept clearing and cleaning, muttering curses under my breath, until at 3:45, a text message arrives from her, asking whether she 'can come tomorrow'.

P: No.
Unreliable cleaner: Oh, ok, I will come today. Is 4:30 ok?
P: No. I was expecting you this morning and you did not come. I have done most of it myself.
UC: Oh, do you want me to finish it?
P: No. I will do it myself.

Yeah, Patti. That'll teach her, alright. It's all perfectly clear that you have scolded her and let her know exactly how angry you are and that she feels awful for letting you down and will nevernever be unreliable again.

Never mind. Yorle is coming to help me today, and it will all be lovely.

And just for the record, I like my Grandmother Long. She was climbing trees well into her sixties, because that's where the best apples were. She would strap a pair of skis on her feet- skis made by her father from an old wagon wheel- ski down into the back woods to cut a Christmas tree, strap it around her waist and ski back. She is the sort to take an upholstery course in her late fifties so that she can run her own business for the next twenty-five years. She made a Christmas stocking for every one of the grandchildren when they were born, and a quilt for every one of their weddings. She can tell you the origin of every scrap of fabric on every quilt she ever made, who owned it and what garment it came from, going back to her own mother's scrap bag. She made me mint chocolate chip squares whenever she knew I was coming home. She would never sit and eat a meal in peace because she was so busy looking after everyone else, even when she was fresh home from the hospital after a hip replacement. She broke that hip ice-skating with her grandsons. She is terrifying and hilarious and strong and not-to-be-gainsayed. She screams at the sight of a mouse. She is extraordinary. Being compared to her isn't all bad.