Floor Steamer
She sighed.
She wished she could afford a house cleaner, but like everything in 2025 everything got so expensive. "It's the economy", the excuses said but it was something else
Her bad decisions. She didn't go to college when all her friends did. She bought a car and got a good factory job. "Not everyone needs to go to college", she told herself.
And for a while, she was right. She had the house and the fancy truck and all the trappings of the upper middle class. Her boots - her boots even screamed "I've made it"
Then the layoff notices came. Restructuring, they said.
The truck went first. She missed it, but it was a toy and there were other options including public transit. "It's not that bad", she lied to herself.
Her friends were still there - the college-going friends. The ones that had "careers" and not just well paying jobs. But they didn't have what she had - determination.
She sold some belongings on eBay and Craigslist and scraped up enough to buy a mop and broom and other cleaning supplies. For the first few jobs, this will have to do - and they did. She cleaned well and she cleaned fast and those 2 traits got her more and more referrals until one day she realized she didn't want the house cleaner as she was the cleaner and she was fine with that.
The economy may still be bad, but she was doing great.