Summary

The story begins with the narrator explaining that Marie, a motel maid, is no longer bothered by the things she finds in people's rooms. Specifically, Marie is grateful that she finds condoms because it means "people were being safe during their motel sex" (1). Marie is Catholic, but the narrator qualifies this description by saying that she is "more flexibly Catholic than strictly Catholic, so she did believe in birth control" (1). Marie has an interesting relationship with God; she refers to him often as "Big Bang," and is skeptical of people who preach full certainty about God: "You cannot be confident and faithful at the same time, she thought" (1).

Marie has also gotten used to cleaning of people's hypodermic needles. She had been stuck by one before when she was changing the sheets on the bed, and had needed to get an HIV test. Lately...