Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2019 23:37:22 +0300
From: Malik White <malikwhitesc@gmail.com>
Subject: Frat Housekeeper 5

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Frat housekeeper - chapter 5


      Feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated, MalikWhiteSC@gmail.com


     Chapter V


After Mr. Jason left for lunch I rushed to Mr. Drew's room to check if he
needs any assistance. In fact I was quite nervous about spending so much
time on serving Mr. Jason, while Mr. Drew may have felt abandoned. Of
course, all guests had plenty of options to get a hold of their assigned
servant, including calling the on-call administrator, using the house app
to text or call the servant directly, or finally simply pushing the big
yellow button with the word "service" on it, located on both bedside
tables. There is a brochure explaining guest services in every guest
room. In addition, all guests received a welcome text message with detailed
instructions. The service button will activate a micro speaker that we all
house staff have implanted into our eardrums for emergent messages. The
message will be very loud for the servant who it is intended for but silent
for everyone else even if the person is just inches away. It's like a
permanent invisible Bluetooth headset. And somehow it doesn't need any
battery -- I believe it uses body bio-currents or something like that as a
source of energy. All I know for sure is that this thing is damn loud. It
wakes you up immediately from even the deepest sleep; but it will never
damage the ear or anything. We are expected to be in the room within 30
seconds after the service button is pushed. Anyways, thankfully Mr. Drew
didn't push the button so far; neither did he request me otherwise. I
knocked his door and said:

	"Housekeeping, Mr. O'Toole. May I help you with anything, sir?"

	"Yes."

I came in and saw that Mr. Drew was already fully dressed. It was a relief
finding out that Mr. Drew apparently dresses up unassisted. His bags were
surely unpacked which was obvious by clothes being thrown all over the
room.

"Good afternoon, Mr. O'Toole. My name is DeShawn, I will be your personal
servant sir."

"Yeah, I was about to page you. I need someone to shine my shoes before
lunch which is in 10 minutes."


Mr. Drew was wearing brown full brogue shoes, which looked fine at a first
glance but I suppose they were indeed not very crisp.

"Definitely sir, I'll be delighted to shine your shoes right now,
sir. Would you mind to follow me to the shoeshine station sir, which is
right down the hallway?"

"OK, you have five minutes."

When escorting Mr. Drew to our shoeshine chairs I was making a plan on how
to best improve the look of Mr. Drew's shoes in just 5 minutes. I was
pretty comfortable at shoe shining as it was taught quite well in the
weekend housekeeping classes at the McColloughs' "Junior Domestic and
Estate Academy" that I had a privilege to attend all the way through my
middle school years.. At the end of the hallway there was an L-shaped
extension with a little lounge that had two shoeshine chairs as well as
some couches and sitting chairs. The lounge was empty at this time of the
day. Mr. Drew immediately climbed into one of the shoeshine chairs and I
quickly grabbed footrests and inserted them into the brackets for
him. Mr. Drew put his feet on the footrests right away. It was obvious that
Mr. Drew was well familiar with the shoeshine procedure. I mean with
getting the shoeshine, not doing himself, of course.

"Would you like any beverage while I shine your shoes Mr. Drew?"

"Diet ginger ale."

"Yes sir."

Fortunately the refrigerator with refreshments was right there in the
lounge. It took me only a few seconds to grab diet ginger ale, a glass,
ice, napkins, and a straw for Mr. Drew. I also took a tiny piece of lime
for myself. I served the drink at a side table next to Mr. Drew's chair. I
then set down on my seat at the bottom of the shoeshine chair. Mr. Drew's
shoes were now conveniently located just under my eye level. I quickly
picked the necessary supplies from the drawer under the shoeshine chair,
carefully rolled up Mr. Drew's slacks a bit, inserted sock protectors, and
rolled the shoelaces inside. Mr. Drew was wearing navy socks with brown
polka dots matching his navy slacks.

Meanwhile Mr. Drew was making a phone call on his cell. I was able to hear
only Mr. Drew's part of the conversation initially:

"Jamal, who packed my bags?"

"...Who is that person?"

"...Was hired a month ago when I was at school? Then you should've done a
better job either screening or orienting him."

"...What happened? First, the order is totally different from how Terrell
used to pack my stuff. I wasted too much time finding the closing items
that I needed. But I realized that we needed to talk when I saw these
so-called dress shoes that he packed. I need to show you this shame. Face
time me right now."

My face was now just few inches away from Mr. Drew's shoes and now I
clearly saw what he meant. The shoes were probably not worn for a while and
kept without a shoetree and not in a shoebox. Perhaps even not washed after
the last time they were worn. Otherwise there were really no signs of wear
and tear. Well, I should de-dust and clean the shoes first. I just wiped
the right shoe with a tissue when Mr. Drew began face timing with his house
manager. He was pointing at the shoes using the front camera of his
phone. I was there in the video as well, of course. Mr. Drew also put Jamal
the manager on speaker.

"Do you see what I have to be dealing with when I need to be at lunch
already?"

"I profoundly apologize for this totally unacceptable situation sir, and
please be assured that I will take a proper corrective action on him,
sir. I am glad that you were able to find a shoe shiner sir, so that this
inconvenience can be mitigated."

I was about to start cleaning the left shoe, but it looked like Mr. Drew
wanted to give Jamal even a closer look at his shoes. Well, at this point
at the left shoe, because the right one looked much better
already. Mr. Drew took his left foot off the footrest and crossed his left
ankle over his right knee.

"That's not the point Jamal. Just look at this:

Mr. Drew was now showing Jamal a very close up view of his left
shoe. Mr. Drew grabbed one of the napkins from his side table and swiped
his left shoe on camera. The napkin was visibly dusty and there was this
dust-free line on the shoe.

"Do you see this shit Jamal? It's the first time in my entire life I am
seeing anything like that."

"I immensely regret this totally unacceptable situation sir, and I will
investigate immediately what happened."

Mr. Drew thankfully returned his left foot on the footrest and I was able
to continue cleaning his left shoe. Mr. Drew also tossed that dirty napkin
that he used to show Jamal how dusty his shoes were and threw it down
somewhere in my direction. It actually touched my forehead as it flew down
and landed on the floor in front of me. I picked the napkin and put it in
the trash. I also quickly grabbed a hand sanitizer and offered it to
Mr. Drew, who took some and sanitized his left hand after it possibly
touched his dusty shoe. Meanwhile I was applying the cleansing foam on both
shoes. Mr. Drew took a sip of his ginger ale and continued:

"Strongly consider firing this individual, Jamal. I can't imagine we could
make any use of such an idiot. In the unlikely event he is staying make
sure he gets the message and never serves me personally again."

"Yes sir, absolutely, I definitely will."

"Let me know in two hours. Also, hasn't my dad instructed you to keep me in
the loop when hiring any new stuff?"

"Yes sir, and I believe you were cc'd on the respectful chain of emails,
sir."

"I haven't seen anything and you know that I live a busy life these days
with school and all the other stuff. Did you get my approval for hiring
him?"

"I don't believe so sir, and I will make sure this doesn't happen again. I
am very, very sorry sir."

"Jamal, it is not sufficient to cc me on some kind of email for things like
that. All new hires must be approved by me, period. My father will grant a
final approval, of course. It was especially outrageous in this case
because the individual apparently was supposed to be providing some
personal service directly to me."

"Yes sir, I..."

"I didn't finish." -- Mr. Drew indeed just took a moment to take another
sip of his ginger ale and continued:

"I wanted to make it very clear that it is your responsibility to reach out
to me and to get my instructions on stuff like that no matter where in the
world I am. Also, I still haven't heard from you who will be managing my
schedule in Terrel's absence. I want to go over all my footwear on Monday
afternoon to see what needs to be thrown away or added."

"Sir, I have iden.."

"I don't want to spend any more time on this conversation right now. I will
be checking my phone in two hours and will read your messages then." --
Mr. Drew hang up, got some more ginger ale, and started checking stuff on
his phone."

Jamal was O'Tool's house manager, and Terrel was Mr. Drew's assistant since
Mr. Drew was little; I knew both of them. Jamal was a very respected
housekeeper in his early 60s but still very energetic. Jamal was in his
late 30s, I believe, and I heard that he was in a car accident recently and
had some injuries that were not life threatening but required some
rehab. So Terrel was probably still not back to work and Jamal found
someone to replace him for Mr. Drew, but this new dude clearly screwed up
with his very first task. It seems that Jamal still didn't fully
acknowledge the emerging leadership role of Mr. Drew. While Mr. Drew was
only twenty, his father apparently decided to begin gradually transitioning
some of the leadership responsibilities to Mr. Drew. I kinda liked how
Mr. Drew talked to Jamal -- respectful to his old loyal servant but firm,
confident, and clear. Despite the outrageous mess Mr. Drew didn't yell on
Jamal or anything. It was also helpful that Mr. Drew didn't move his feet
during the conversation (except when he was showing his dusty shoe to Jamal
on his phone). Some gentlemen begin involuntary wiggling their toes,
shaking or flexing their feet when they get deeply into a sensitive
conversations, which pose an additional challenge for their
shoe-shiner. Fortunately, this was not the case for Mr. Drew, reflecting
his confidence.

While Mr. Drew was talking to Jamal, I first cleaned his shoes with the
cleansing foam, then dried them up, and applied some polish using my
fingers. It's really much better to use fingers to apply the shoe polish
rather than a polish cloth or a welt brush. You will feel the texture of
the shoe much better with your fingers and will distribute the polish more
evenly. Anyway, that's how we do it here at McColloughs' house. I then
buffed both shoes with two buffing brushes. Despite time constraints I
still wanted to give Mr. Drew our signature spit-shine finish.

We are proud to use only our real saliva for the spit shines here at
McColough's house. Saliva gives a much better effect than water and it's
better for the leather. There are essentially three methods we practice to
apply our spit on the shoes: we can either literally spit on them, or use
the tissue, or.. well, use our wet tongue directly on the shoes. Spitting
is only appropriate when we shine shoes in advance (not the ones worn on
the gentlemen's feet at the time of a shoe shine). The `tongue-wash' of the
shoes is actually preferred whenever possible. We must use antibacterial
mouthwash before licking shoes (or before spitting on them), to make sure
no bacteria from our mouths get on the shoes, or, god forbid, on the
gentleman's skin. We are, of course, very careful when spit shining upper
quarters or that small piece of the shoe tongue under the laces. However,
as I said, there is always a chance that the gentleman might unexpectedly
move feet, and this is when the accidents tend to happen. It might gross
Mr. Drew out to see or feel my saliva on his socks. This may be even more
of an issue when a gentleman wears shoes sockless or uses true no-show
socks, which becomes more and more common. Also, we don't usually use the
tongue method to spit shine the guests' shoes during in-person shoe-shines,
unless directly requested. This is because some of our guests may not be
used to this method, while others might find it too personal or even
intrusive -- some gentlemen don't feel comfortable when servants' heads are
too close to their bodies (even to such a remote part of the body as feet).

Well, obviously I didn't get a chance to sanitize my mouth immediately
before starting Mr. Drew's shoeshine. Also I didn't know if Mr. Drew was
going to be comfortable with a tongue based spit shine. Therefore I went
for the third method and started wetting special tissue pads with my saliva
and quickly applying it on Mr. Drew's shoes. Those pads have antimicrobial
filling so it's quite safe from the sanitation standpoint. I also started
chewing that piece of lime to stimulate my salivation. Once shoes were
covered with my spit all over I started buffing them with a soft cloth.

This was when Mr. Drew finished his conversation with Jamal and also was
apparently done with checking messages on his phone.

"Are you almost done down there?" -- Mr. Drew asked me.

"Yes sir, just few more seconds please".

I buffed the shoes few more times all over and was overall satisfied with
the result, of course considering such a short amount of time I was
given. The only possible issue that required some fixing was that the toe
of the right shoe looked just a bit less glossy than that of the left
shoe. I literally had just few seconds and Mr. Drew might have been looking
at me now. Yet I decided to take a risk and gave Mr. Drew's right shoe few
licks over that toe area and then I quickly buffed just the right shoe
again. I think the shoes now looked equal. Mr. Drew did not show any signs
of dissatisfaction with me licking his right shoe, at least verbally. I
removed sock protectors, and pulled out the shoelaces. Mr. Drew was wearing
mid-calf socks which were a bit sagging, and I quickly pulled the socks
up. I then unrolled Mr. Drew's slacks, and said:

"I am done, sir. Thank you for the opportunity to shine your shoes, sir."

As Mr. Drew was getting off the chair, he pulled out his wallet, pulled
something from it and.. thrown it on the floor in front of me. I now saw
that it was a five-dollar bill -- my tip! This was so kind of Mr. Drew!

"Thank you sir!"

Mr. Drew was already on his way out to lunch. He told me already from the
hallway:

"Now go make up all that mess in my room. Find out if that idiot even
packed any gym gear. I may have time for the gym in the afternoon."


Feedback and suggestions are greatly appreciated, MalikWhiteSC@gmail.com