poles and disappearances

Fuck Poland.

Here's why.

A few months ago, I noticed that my favourite age-defying, skin-transforming, organic as fuck, made with the tears of semi-extinct alpacas, face cream, disappeared.

And yes, it was more expensive than the sushi at Nobu.

It's like it had fallen into a black hole of nothingness, down some invisible tract in our bathroom cabinet, by a force of the paranormal. After much searching, because I know I'd definitely left it in its rightful place, I gave up. My cream had gone on its own little life mission, never to be seen again. I thought maybe the Brit had eaten it, or thrown it in the bin, or maybe 'someone' dropped it and just didn't want to own up. Perhaps it was now plastered on the face of another thirtysomething who was wrinkle-averse.

I let it go. All £80 worth of it. Almost full jar. In case you're wondering.

Fast forward to Saturday morning - chaos as we run amuck our house cleaning up our wine glasses from the night before.

I know, to quell this beast of a wineover, I'll wear my favourite scarf, the one hanging again, in it's pride of place, and I'll just reach out and gra...where is it?
Well isn't that extremely irritating. It's not where I left it this morning.
 
It was my favourite one - it's the one I wore when I am powerscarfing at work. When I need an air of Women Demon Machine that shouldn't be fucked with. The one that derives gasps of fear and delight when I enter a room, scarf around my neck like a silken python.

Please, dear God, may 'someone' have accidentally used this as a dish cloth?

Maybe it was bottom of the wash basket? Nay. Again, searched everywhere. Now annoyed, told the Brit that the scarf was missing.
He put it down to it being somewhere.

Then it all started unraveling.

My lovely pearl earrings, given to me by someone as a wedding present - sentimental as fuck basically - gone. And I definitely knew where I put those, as I take them off every night and put them in their own little container.

Scarf, cream and other bits aside, not the fucking earrings. 

These items, alongside a few others, had disappeared literally from less than 20 hours earlier. In between that time, there was only one person in our house: our Polish cleaner.

So I made the phonecall. Have you taken them? Be honest? Tell me where they are then? Still denying it, when the ultimate and forensically logical conclusion was, "You have been the only person in my house over the last day. So YOU are the last person to see these items."

She doesn't speak pretty much any English except for saying "One sec," repeatedly and then putting the phone down on me.

I was having a small fit, sure.

After much back and forthing, she admitted that she had, in fact, outsourced her job to her daughter and friends and therefore she hadn't been the person in our house cleaning all this time. In fact, the rest of Poland had.

And they'd taken our shit. Bit by bit, hoping we wouldn't notice.

I was fee-you-rious. We should never have trusted her, but when our original cleaner went on maternity leave, she recommended this woman. Who then let strangers into our house.

The Brit went into DIY-mode and deftly changed our locks. He-Man.

I told her to please give me back the earrings, she could keep the rest of the stuff. Pop them in the postbox while we visited the Brit's parents in Hampshire.

Well, they're still not there. And yes, she's fired.

So. While people complain of stealing in South Africa, it happens here too. To conclude: don't trust the Poles. Unless they have a reference.

I then spent the whole of Sunday hunched over my computer, with a phone on my ear, working from my in-laws office while everyone had a braai outside.

Then woke up at 4:30am to do briefings in TV channels across the city.

What a fun weekend.