Pre-menopausal women who did housework were 30 per cent less likely to develop breast cancer than pre-menopausal women who did none, while post-menopausal women who did housework were 20 per cent less likely to develop the disease than those who did none.

Take that, all you rich women who never do a speck of housework!

Personally, while I wouldn’t mind having someone come in a few times a year to help me with massive house detailing, like doing the floorboards, ceilings, walls, and in all the dark corners, I can’t imagine having someone come in once a week or more often to do all my housework. I say that as someone who spent a little time as a personal maid and has some experience with rich people who don’t even bother to wipe up their own spilled soda. “Well, the maid is coming in day after tomorrow.” No, really. We’d show up at this luxurious lake house (mansion), and if they spilled something on Monday, it would be there on Wednesday waiting for us. Bits of the onion they chopped on Sunday night would be on the counter and floor. Crumbs would be everywhere. A hundred lipstick-stained glasses would be stacked in the sink right by the massively expensive and easy to use dishwasher. Dirty clothing would stack where it fell in the bathroom, closet or bedroom. It was crazy. Why wouldn’t you immediately grab a sponge or paper towel and wipe up the soda you spilled on the counter which is now dripping down to the floor? How do you avoid stepping on onion bits for the few days they lay there before the maid comes in to do the floor? How the hell hard is it to at least put your own dirty dishes in the dishwasher, even if you can’t be bothered to learn how to turn the thing on? And you have a laundry room larger than most middle class bedrooms, and you can’t even manage to toss your dirty clothing into it?

Sure, if I were wealthy enough and had a large house to maintain, it would be nice to have someone come in once a week (or two) to do the floors, maybe do the laundry, wash windows, wipe down appliances, and clean the house itself. You know … dusting, vacuuming and mopping, sweeping the ceilings, and the really basic stuff. I would never expect a maid to be responsible for cleaning up my spilled soda from two days past … or cleaning up the clippings from the dinner I decided to cook for myself. It’s stupid to leave stuff like that laying around harboring germs and making a mess. It always made me wonder if one of them had gotten sick and vomited in the living room if they’d have just walked around it for four days until we came in to clean. I honestly believe they would have done just that.

How do you not do any housework at all?!

Anyway, sorry for the rant. I’m still a little hostile after my brief stint in servitude to the wealthy. Hostile and still dumbfounded by how utterly juvenile and piggish the rich can be. I have to go clean the kitty litter box, feed the munchkins, and take out the trash now … all in the name of avoiding breast cancer!