She's got it m.a.i.d.

The other morning, I awoke to find the maid sitting on our couch in the living room yapping away at light speed on the telephone.

WTF?

Seriously, I'm not paying this woman to come in and use our phone so she can call Kuwait or whatver on my effing tab.

Yo, I'm paying her to do the dishes and to pretend to dust and to take care of the laundry and to empty the garbages and to pick up my socks and the like. You know, maid stuff.

While this might not seem like an issue for you folks back in Canada, in Egypt, land lines (much like cell phones) run on a time scale, meaning the more minutes you use, the more cashola you pay.

Anyways, now she comes in everyday just to use our phone. And yesterday, she told me to get her some tea because she gets headaches when she cleans. Um, who works for who?

In a bit of drunken bravado, my roomate Shane hid our phone in his room, meaning no more phone for the maid.

Anyways, when she came in to use the phone yesterday morning, she freaked out! I had like four people standing over my bed -- including the maid, the doorman and some dusty kid from the street -- asking me where the phone was.

It was funny.