Old adage confirmed once again

We have all heard the phrase “Never judge a book by its cover,” but we never really pay attention to it and neither is it embedded in our consciousness. We are, by nature, a judgmental lot and we get shocked when something or someone contradicts this age-old adage. 

I love to tell this fairy-tale story about the domestic help of a friend in New York City. My friend and her husband are in New York City’s social register and my lady friend knows most of Manhattan’s rich-and-famous women, having been in the PR industry at one point in her life. She occasionally holds PR events at their plush apartment on Fifth Avenue. During one such PR event where she was promoting the summer line of a well-known accessory and clothing designer in NYC, I was there very early and saw her domestic, whom I will call “Juanita,” preparing the afternoon delicacies. 

It was just Juanita, the designer, my lady friend and myself who were present. When Juanita finished doing her chores, she went to the table of accessories, which had bags, jewelry, etc., looked them over and talked to the designer. She asked the price of a bag in croc leather, and placed an order for three bags in different colors. Her purchase cost $18,000. The designer, who looked flustered and unbelieving, graciously took Juanita’s order and promised to deliver them at a given time. My lady friend called Juanita to the kitchen and I could hear them arguing in Spanish. Juanita told her she wanted those bags for herself, her daughter and a friend and she would not change her mind about her purchases!

The long and the short of Juanita’s story is this: She is an immigrant from Venezuela, separated, with one daughter. She has been working for my friends for almost 10 years and they consider her part of their family. One beautiful day, Juanita, who never failed to buy Lotto tickets, won the grand prize — all of 80 million dollars! One would think that she would stop working as a domestic with all that money, but Juanita said that work, her daughter and her bosses were her life, and if she quit working she would be very bored. So she continued her daily grind of reporting for work every day, commuting from Long Island to Manhattan. 

One morning, she told her bosses that she was very tired of commuting. Her bosses told her to retire and enjoy her money and spend her life enjoying quality time with her married daughter and her grandchildren. Juanita said she had other ideas and did not want to retire at 55 years old. She wanted to continue working for her bosses. She told them that there was a vacant two-bedroom apartment in the building for sale and that she was buying it so she did not have to commute.

The happy ending to the story: Juanita lives in the same building as her bosses and she visits her daughter every weekend in a beautiful house that she bought for them on Long Island. 

Dressed in her black-and-white maid’s uniform trimmed with lace, Juanita hardly looks like the millionaire that she is. I must admit I was laughing on the inside when I heard her ordering those bags. I was guilty of judging this poor (rich!) lady. I thought she had delusions of grandeur and was a bit demented. The joke was on me! Who would believe that a millionaire would continue working as a domestic! To this day, she is happily working for her bosses, still the humble, unassuming Juanita that I have known all these years. 

Just recently, Susan Boyle, a 47-year-old, frumpy-looking lady from Scotland, with bushy eyebrows and hair that looked like a bird’s nest, surprised the judges of Britain’s Got Talent.  She walked onstage with everyone believing she would be a laughingstock. Looking at clips of the audience showed them covering their faces and snidely giggling at her, especially when she said that she was 47 years old and had never been kissed.

The judges looked disgusted and disbelieving when she said that she aspired to be the next Elaine Page. They were ready to write her off. All that changed when she started to sing the song I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables. She electrified viewers as she had the voice of an angel. She received a standing ovation from the live audience, most of them teary-eyed. She garnered “yes” votes from judges Simon Cowell (later on, she was dubbed “the woman who shut up Simon Cowell) and Amanda Holden, and “the biggest yes I have ever given anybody” from third judge Piers Morgan.

Amanda Holden, before she gave her yes, holding back her tears, said, “I am so thrilled because I know that everybody was against you. I honestly think that we were all being very cynical, and I think that’s the biggest wakeup call ever. I just want to say that it was a complete privilege listening to you.”

 Similarly, Lisa Schwarzbaum in an article in Entertainment Weekly said that Boyle’s performance was particularly moving as it was “a victory for talent and artistry in a culture obsessed with physical attractiveness and presentation.”

Commenting on the audience’s reactions before she started singing, Boyle said, “Modern society is too quick to judge people on their appearance. There is not much you can do about it, it is the way they think, it is the way they are. But maybe this could teach them a lesson, or set an example.”