Alonza's Employees

I have seventeen men
In my family
Named Gabriel

Cousins, uncles
A few nephews
Three of my brothers

All Gabriel

So when I get a package in the mail
Filled with money
From someone named Gabriel
I think--

Wonderful

Now I have to make phone calls
To seventeen people

And see who sent this to me
So I can give it back to them

I don't want money
Money brings trouble

From the day I set foot in this country
I've been around people with money
And let me tell you something

They're horrible

I worked for a rich family
Named the Tenders
Who owned a restaurant downtown
I couldn't even afford to eat in

Their daughter used to throw things at my head

It was like working for one of those pitching machines

I didn't want to be a pitching machine
So I was going to send that money back

But by the time I got to my third cousin Gabriel
I was tired
And I was worried about how much money I was spending
On long distance phone calls

As I hung up the phone
A bolt of lightning came down
And struck a tree
Right outside my window

God as witness, it did

That was how I knew I should keep the money

But what was I going to do with it?

I don't need anything

I'd like things
But I don't need things

And wanting things I don't need
And buying them
Just because I want to
Would feel so...

American

I felt I should do something
Important with the money

Give back to the community

So...

I hired a maid

Her name is Lola
And she is by far
The worst maid
I have ever seen

Nothing is cleaned
Nothing is dusted
Nothing is washed

I would come home from cleaning the houses
And my house would be a mess

And there Lola would be
Sitting on my couch
Complaining that her 'visitor was in town'

I told her that any girl who gets her 'visitor' that much
Should think about going to church more often

After two months of not cleaning
Lola stopped leaving to go home

She said her rent wasn't getting paid

'How can your rent not be getting paid,' I asked, 'Don't I pay you well enough?'

'I'm bad with money,' she said

Bad with money

Where I'm from
If you're bad with money
We shoot you

Here it's nothing

Here it's just a way you are
Bad with money

So she moved in

By now I was sick of coming home
To a filthy house
So I had to hire another maid

Lola's sister Markie

I wouldn't have hired her sister
But I figured there had to be at least one good worker
In the family

It turns out Markie can clean

Her problem is
She steals

Don't look so surprised

Everyone knows white people steal

The problem is
I didn't have much to begin with
So Markie had a hard time hiding her stealing

One day I came home and my back door was gone

'Markie,' I said, 'Do you know where the front door is?'

'Ummm,' she said, eating her hair like a goat

If she'd only stolen smaller things
I could have ignored the whole thing
As an act of Christian charity
But I couldn't allow myself to be made a fool of
So I had to let her go

Of course, she still moved in with me

Lola said that her and Markie's mother
Was a nasty woman
And she couldn't let Markie go back and live with her

So I went out and bought bunk beds
For the girls

And this time I hired a butler

In my defense, I didn't know he was their brother
Until halfway through the interview

They told him not to say anything
But then he started eating his hair
And after a few seconds
I recognized the shiftiness in his eyes
And I knew what had happened

Good thing for me he can cook
He can't clean at all
But Markie still does that
As long as I leave a twenty out
For her to steal every few days

She's like a cheetah
A stealing, lying, thieving cheetah
It's her nature

So now I have a house full of employees

A live-in staff

My family back home would be so impressed

Except I'm still living in a bad neighborhood
And yesterday I hired Lola's cousin Joe to be my gardener
And I don't even have a gardener

I just have luck
And I can't have it alone

So now I have a two-bedroom, run-down shack
Two maids, a butler, and a gardener

And tomorrow Lola's mother is stopping by
To say hello

I hear she's an interior decorator

Whoever said money can buy you happiness
Didn't know the half of it