Concierge

We live right next door to one of the richest counties in the nation, which happens to fall in Kansas.

The county we live in, by contrast, is not only NOT one of the richest, it’s even in (gasp!) Missouri. When you live in the KC metro area, the State Line is everything. It’s funny, though. Forty or fifty years ago, the flight from Kansas City, MO, began in earnest. Most who fled didn’t consider it sufficient to flee to the outlying suburbs on the “Missouri side.” They hightailed it over to AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT STATE, where there was NO risk whatsoever of their children ending up in “those schools” or them ending up with undesirable neighbors.

Now, as poetic and regular justice would have it, the urban core of KCMO is undergoing a resurrgence. Doug and I couldn’t afford to move to town—where I grew up!—if we wanted to. But many of those life-long Kansans are buying lofts downtown. I think for some of them, the day they shopped for their city dwelling might have been the first time they’d ever crossed over.

Yeah, we tease about this stuff here. “They” talk crazy about us Missourians, too. It goes with the territory and makes living here interesting.

Doug just ran across a sales brochure for a business based in the Rich County. I wonder if they’d consider crossing over to help me out?

Here are the services offered by this personal concierge:

Errands, general pick-up and delivery, waiting service, organization, vendor referrals, reservations, light housekeeping, grocery shopping, vacation research, event planning, invitations, post-party clean-up, customized home checks, mail pick-up, stock fridge, gift buying, party preparation, holiday cards, decorate, graduations, weddings, new moms, relocations.

All services are offered on an a la carte basis, but membership pricing is available.

This really DOES raise the question of what people are still willing to do on their own behalf, doesn’t it?

I’ve got a few things I’d like on this list instead of the things on this list. If someone wants to do my items for me, I’d have the energy to do the fun stuff on the concierge’s list.

1. I don’t need someone to do light housekeeping. I need a heavy housekeeper. Someone who moves all the furniture and major appliances out from the walls and cleans behind each piece. Someone who removes every book from every shelf and dusts not only the shelf, but the books. Someone who does all the corners, and edges, and baseboards. Someone who will take my perfectly adequate but DIRTY indoor trash cans all outside for a good bath. Someone who will scour the siding on our house, and the outside of all the windows, on the same day. I need someone who’s greatest joy is to use a toothbrush on tile grout and on the metal track of a sliding glass shower door. Or patio door. Her choice.

2. I don’t need someone to pick up my dry cleaning. I’m too cheap to buy clothes that need dry cleaned, except for Doug’s suits, which he doesn’t wear often. I need someone to treat the stains he keeps getting on his everyday shirts. I need someone to catch me up a on a huge basket or ironing so I can wrap my own Christmas presents.

3. I don’t need someone to stock my fridge. I need someone to clean my fridge with a freakin’ scrub brush. I need someone to remove all the glass shelves (if you can pry them loose from whatever spilled substance has adhered them to the fridge) and the door shelves and clean them to within an inch of their lives. I need someone to get rid of all the salad dressings that are circa 1988, and combine the bottles of ketchup, mustard and KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce. I need someone who’s singularly unafraid of penicillin that isn’t contained in a sterile syringe, but that grows unencombered in my fridge.

4. I don’t need someone to do “customized home checks” while I’m on vacation. All my plants are already dead. I can cancel the mail delivery on my own, thanks. And if what you mean by “customized” is that you’ll take a peek into my lingerie drawer in my absence and giggle, I don’t think I’ll give you the key.

5. I don’t need a “waiting service.” Waiting is a welcome activity for me. It’s my down time. It’s when I can tell others who want a piece of me, “Oh, sorry. I need to be here from ten till six, waiting. Maybe next time!” It’s when I get some writing done, or some praying, or some reading. Oh, the bliss of waiting. You don’t need to pay me the big bucks to wait, and I won’t part with any of my money to lose the privilege.

6. I don’t need any more vendor referrals. I’ve got friends, who all use vendors. Most of said friends live in the Rich County, and know some quality providers. On the other hand, some of my favorite (read:cheap!) vendors are the down-and-dirty MIssouri folks I’ve come to depend on. For instance, if I want one of those fantastic professional cleaning jobs done on my car, I can go over to Kansas and spend $100. Or I can stay on this side and spend $45. My guess is that you would not be referring me to the fantastic $45 guy, so I’ll pass.

7. I don’t need anyone to perform “vacation research” on my behalf. I’m pretty sure personal concierges must have heard the saying “Half the fun is in the planning.” Do you think I’m going to let ANYBODY take away half my fun? I don’t have that many good years left, people!! I am hanging on to all the fun I can.

8. I don’t need anyone to take over my party planning, wedding planning, graduation planning, gift buying, holiday decorating, or any of the other sometimes ONCE IN A LIFETIME amazingly wonderful stuff that happens in a family’s life. Why should YOU get to do all the fun stuff, and I get the leftovers??

If there’s a personal concierge out there who wants to do the stuff I need done, I’m very extremely open to reading her brochure.

Posted by Katy on 11/14/07 at 03:41 PM

Fallible Comments...

This is hilarious! I can't help but wonder if the service belongs to a woman who I sell coffee with at the Chiefs' games. She does that exact thing for people. One of her specialities is organization. Hey, I'd love to get paid to organize other people's stuff!
Posted by Bridget on 11/14/07 at 06:57 PM
This is great, Katy.

I can't afford to live in the neighborhood I grew up in either!

I can't imagine anyone doing all that for me. What would I do all day? Oh yeah, I could write from sunup to sunset....LOL

I need someone to do some heavy cleaning too! (Hey, all of us writers need that, since we're so busy listening to all those characters in our head.)
Posted by Suzan on 11/14/07 at 09:49 PM
This was really funny, I love your writing style.
Posted by Chicago Party Rentals on 02/06/09 at 03:35 PM

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Personal blog of christian writer & fallible mom Katy McKenna Raymond in Kansas City, Missouri Katy is represented by Greg Johnson at WordServe Literary Read more Katy at LateBoomer.net Follow Katy on Twitter Follow Katy on Facebook 123 Recent Posts Try Becoming Brenda Starr Off Beat Scattered That’s It So I’ve Finally Signed With An Agent. Now What? The Spoon Sciatica Sweetheart A Woman’s Train of Thought Has No Caboose However much we own, we are all still living on borrowed time After all, when restaurants shrink portions, they don’t shrink prices. As with everything in life, balance is key. Slow down, you move too fast… Yeah, I know. I have issues. Search Advanced Search Syndicate Login E me at katy @ ngenius.com	Concierge We live right next door to one of the richest counties in the nation, which happens to fall in Kansas. The county we live in, by contrast, is not only NOT one of the richest, it’s even in (gasp!) Missouri. When you live in the KC metro area, the State Line is everything. It’s funny, though. Forty or fifty years ago, the flight from Kansas City, MO, began in earnest. Most who fled didn’t consider it sufficient to flee to the outlying suburbs on the “Missouri side.” They hightailed it over to AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT STATE, where there was NO risk whatsoever of their children ending up in “those schools” or them ending up with undesirable neighbors. Now, as poetic and regular justice would have it, the urban core of KCMO is undergoing a resurrgence. Doug and I couldn’t afford to move to town—where I grew up!—if we wanted to. But many of those life-long Kansans are buying lofts downtown. I think for some of them, the day they shopped for their city dwelling might have been the first time they’d ever crossed over. Yeah, we tease about this stuff here. “They” talk crazy about us Missourians, too. It goes with the territory and makes living here interesting. Doug just ran across a sales brochure for a business based in the Rich County. I wonder if they’d consider crossing over to help me out? Here are the services offered by this personal concierge: Errands, general pick-up and delivery, waiting service, organization, vendor referrals, reservations, light housekeeping, grocery shopping, vacation research, event planning, invitations, post-party clean-up, customized home checks, mail pick-up, stock fridge, gift buying, party preparation, holiday cards, decorate, graduations, weddings, new moms, relocations. All services are offered on an a la carte basis, but membership pricing is available. This really DOES raise the question of what people are still willing to do on their own behalf, doesn’t it? I’ve got a few things I’d like on this list instead of the things on this list. If someone wants to do my items for me, I’d have the energy to do the fun stuff on the concierge’s list. 1. I don’t need someone to do light housekeeping. I need a heavy housekeeper. Someone who moves all the furniture and major appliances out from the walls and cleans behind each piece. Someone who removes every book from every shelf and dusts not only the shelf, but the books. Someone who does all the corners, and edges, and baseboards. Someone who will take my perfectly adequate but DIRTY indoor trash cans all outside for a good bath. Someone who will scour the siding on our house, and the outside of all the windows, on the same day. I need someone who’s greatest joy is to use a toothbrush on tile grout and on the metal track of a sliding glass shower door. Or patio door. Her choice. 2. I don’t need someone to pick up my dry cleaning. I’m too cheap to buy clothes that need dry cleaned, except for Doug’s suits, which he doesn’t wear often. I need someone to treat the stains he keeps getting on his everyday shirts. I need someone to catch me up a on a huge basket or ironing so I can wrap my own Christmas presents. 3. I don’t need someone to stock my fridge. I need someone to clean my fridge with a freakin’ scrub brush. I need someone to remove all the glass shelves (if you can pry them loose from whatever spilled substance has adhered them to the fridge) and the door shelves and clean them to within an inch of their lives. I need someone to get rid of all the salad dressings that are circa 1988, and combine the bottles of ketchup, mustard and KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce. I need someone who’s singularly unafraid of penicillin that isn’t contained in a sterile syringe, but that grows unencombered in my fridge. 4. I don’t need someone to do “customized home checks” while I’m on vacation. All my plants are already dead. I can cancel the mail delivery on my own, thanks. And if what you mean by “customized” is that you’ll take a peek into my lingerie drawer in my absence and giggle, I don’t think I’ll give you the key. 5. I don’t need a “waiting service.” Waiting is a welcome activity for me. It’s my down time. It’s when I can tell others who want a piece of me, “Oh, sorry. I need to be here from ten till six, waiting. Maybe next time!” It’s when I get some writing done, or some praying, or some reading. Oh, the bliss of waiting. You don’t need to pay me the big bucks to wait, and I won’t part with any of my money to lose the privilege. 6. I don’t need any more vendor referrals. I’ve got friends, who all use vendors. Most of said friends live in the Rich County, and know some quality providers. On the other hand, some of my favorite (read:cheap!) vendors are the down-and-dirty MIssouri folks I’ve come to depend on. For instance, if I want one of those fantastic professional cleaning jobs done on my car, I can go over to Kansas and spend $100. Or I can stay on this side and spend $45. My guess is that you would not be referring me to the fantastic $45 guy, so I’ll pass. 7. I don’t need anyone to perform “vacation research” on my behalf. I’m pretty sure personal concierges must have heard the saying “Half the fun is in the planning.” Do you think I’m going to let ANYBODY take away half my fun? I don’t have that many good years left, people!! I am hanging on to all the fun I can. 8. I don’t need anyone to take over my party planning, wedding planning, graduation planning, gift buying, holiday decorating, or any of the other sometimes ONCE IN A LIFETIME amazingly wonderful stuff that happens in a family’s life. Why should YOU get to do all the fun stuff, and I get the leftovers?? If there’s a personal concierge out there who wants to do the stuff I need done, I’m very extremely open to reading her brochure. Posted by Katy on 11/14/07 at 03:41 PM Fallible Comments... This is hilarious! I can't help but wonder if the service belongs to a woman who I sell coffee with at the Chiefs' games. She does that exact thing for people. One of her specialities is organization. Hey, I'd love to get paid to organize other people's stuff! Posted by Bridget on 11/14/07 at 06:57 PM This is great, Katy. I can't afford to live in the neighborhood I grew up in either! I can't imagine anyone doing all that for me. What would I do all day? Oh yeah, I could write from sunup to sunset....LOL I need someone to do some heavy cleaning too! (Hey, all of us writers need that, since we're so busy listening to all those characters in our head.) Posted by Suzan on 11/14/07 at 09:49 PM This was really funny, I love your writing style. Posted by Chicago Party Rentals on 02/06/09 at 03:35 PM Page 1 of 1 pages Commenting is not available in this weblog entry. Next entry: Oprah! Previous entry: Fine Print << Back to main


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Personal blog of christianwriter & fallible momKaty McKenna Raymondin Kansas City, Missouri

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Personal blog of christian
writer & fallible mom
Katy McKenna Raymond
in Kansas City, Missouri