This is Sallie.

No jive turkey

Sallie has worked for my family since I was about three years old. I remember her first day, because it is my earliest recollection of seeing a real, live black person in my house. This event scared me, naturally. In a three year old's mind, it's akin to an alien from outer space strolling into your living room. The strange woman sent me running behind my mother's leg, hiding behind something that shielded only a thin sliver of my body from the flat topped stranger.

Sallie has been my second mother since that day. I hate to say "She's my maid," or "She's our housekeeper," a) because it sounds so genteel, and b) because she's much more than that. She knows me about as well as my real mom, the white one. I guess intimacy is a natural by product of washing a dude's underpants for two decades.

(See, what happened to me in the bathroom at the Texans game last December. "Oh I KNOW you done did somethin' bad!")

Sallie likes to say that she "ain't no jiiiiiive turkey," she likes to go to clubs, or, if not, "drink some tequila" when she goes home every day, and also to constantly remind me of how hot she is -- in her own words, "I'm fiiiiine" -- despite her 62 years of age. This is irrelevant to the story. I just thought you'd like to know that.

She realized long ago that I am sentimental about strange stuff. It may look like trash, or scrap paper, or a bag of hair (which is still sitting on our kitchen counter, waiting to be mailed to Locks of Love), but that doesn't mean she can throw it away. Countless times over the years, I've accused her of disposing of some trinket or another, ones I couldn't live without, that I adamantly denied having lost myself. Almost every time, the trinkets would turn up. My mom throws my stuff away all the time; Sallie never does.

All growing up, my folks would periodically rage at how untidy I kept my room. They would desperately try to teach me a lesson. "Sallie, under no circumstances are you to set foot in Bayless' room, do you understand?" Invariably, this led to my room becoming dirtier and dirtier, until it began to look like a college dorm room. At this point, Sallie would secretly go in and clean it all up. She just could not take it. She's got some O.C.D. like tendencies.

So she feels compelled to clean my room on the one hand, and fears the consequences of cleaning my room on the other. It's a very interesting dichotomy. This is why I thought it'd be funny to conduct a little social experiment on Sallie.

Geww.

This is an orange I snuck into Austin City Limits, which was in September. I forgot about it, deep in the recesses of my backpack, and never ate it. I came home. A week or two went by. I found it while rummaging through the middle pocket one day. The orange was bruised and old, and besides, the two that I did eat at the festival were pretty tasteless anyway. I placed the orange on my bedside table, and forgot about it the next morning when I woke up and left.

When I came home, I couldn't help but notice that Sallie had left the orange where I'd placed it the night before. This happened again the next day, and the next. It was at this point I decided, I am not going to throw this orange away; I'm going to see how long it takes Sallie before she finally decides it is too disgusting, that I can't possibly want to keep a piece of decomposing fruit like it's an autographed baseball or something.

Today is November 8. ACL ended September 28. How many days is that? I'll tell you how many: 41. When I woke up this morning, still, the orange had not been moved. Scroll back up and look at this thing -- that crack formed on its own volition, not from me cutting it or dropping it; and the mold is quite noticeable at this point.

The experiment is over. I am throwing in the towel. Sallie has defeated me. I typically fare well in wars of attrition, but this time, it's starting to affect my health. I can't handle the thought of breathing in all that mold for the sake of "winning" a competition during an "experiment" that Sallie doesn't even know is taking place.

Still, though, I find it fascinating to ponder just what it is that goes through Sallie's mind when she's sees this orange every morning she shows up for work. Because she definitely notices it, and definitely makes a conscious decision to leave it be.