different world views

Last Thursday I emerged from my bedroom groggy and unkempt after a long night of perturbed dreaming about Russian girls.
I stood on the landing at the top of the stairs.
It was midday.
Below I could hear the Mammy at the front door greeting Rowena Hampton, a neighbour from up the road.
Rowena is a bird like woman in her sixties with a voice that always seems to me to be artificially controlled to the point of lunaception.
You know those voices.
Every word pronounced as though it was carved from glass.
Artificially sweet.
Artificially calm.
Artificially artificial.
Genuinely scary.
Her and the Mammy are heading out to a book club.
I listen in on their conversation.
"Oh you've lots of posters and pictures on the walls," remarks Rowena referring to some of my art treasures hanging in the hall.
"Yes, the place is full of shit," shoots back the Mammy, also referring to my art treasures.
"Every house is," replies Rowena without hesitation.
I found this response most surrealistic and not a little discomfitting.
Instead of saying: "Oh no, not at all," this bird like woman who never puts a foot wrong in social situations, appeared to instantly affirm my mother's scathing estimation of the value of my art collection.
Outrageous behaviour.
A few days later I again emerged from my bedroom in similar circumstances.
Long night.
Russki Dux.
To what serves etc etc.
This time I could hear the Mammy welcoming Brian Wallmer the painter at the front door.
I groaned briefly at the realisation that there would now be a painter banging around the place for the next few months.
"The place is full of shit," sez the Mammy brightly.
This appears to be her main conversation gambit when welcoming newcomers to the Chateau De Healy.
The painter was having none of it.
"Those aren't shit," he told her firmly. "Those are memories. You wouldn't believe how many houses I go to, and all there is, is a picture of a girl in a negligee. That's it. That's their lives."
His words seemed to carry wisdom beyond their immediate import.
I returned to my bedroom muttering savagely: "What I wouldn't give for a girl in a negligee."