The Cleaner Girl

The cleaner girl greets you with a hello. Her face is cold and unpassionate. You respond with a smile and usher her in, totally not freaking out about the disastrous state of your house.

Though you've had the woman over many times, you never managed to catch her name. In your mind, she's always just the "cleaner girl." She has short, wafty hair that looks like it could use a good wash. Her baggy plumber attire makes her look far larger than she is, even thought you can tell by the way she walks that she's on the ganglier side. She is also ghostly pale, with splotches of faint rose around her cheeks and eyes.

She drones, "So, what's the problem again?"

"Leaky pipe in the kitchen. Can't seem to get it screwed back together."

"Alright, let me take a look."

You lead the girl towards the kitchen and flip open a ground-level cabinet. Housed inside is a network of metal pipes and steel beams, all connected to a central duct. Several of the pipes are leaking at the seams, and the buckets you placed at the bottom of the cabinet have done very little to prevent water from overflowing into the kitchen.

The cleaner girl kneels and glances at the pipes. After a moment she pulls out a pair of rubber gloves and tugs them over her grease-covered hands. Without looking at you she states, "This is gonna be around $300. Check back with me in about an hour."

"$300?" you think, "you barely even looked at it!? What kinda scam is this?" Your thoughts almost manifest into words but the cleaner girl has already slipped on a pair of headphones. You try and tell yourself that hassling her will do nothing, but it's not a very convincing argument. As you walk away into the living room you mockingly aim the ray gun at the plumber and fire. Surprisingly, a flash of light flies from the gun and hits her square in the back of the head.