Le râteau

I can remember being thoroughly impressed when I found out that Susan had worked for non-other than Martha Stewart herself. Perhaps from that moment forward Susan shone with an inner light not quite seen before, whatever the case, here was a great chance to find out what the real Martha Stewart was like.

Susan related several stories, the most memorable being the gardener and the cats. Susan was outside on a crisp New England morning, new to her position, eagerly waiting for the show to begin filming. Susan waited with interest as Martha called over one of her Mexican assistant gardeners and requested that he bring her “le râteau” for the next shot.

Perhaps all of Martha’s gardeners are required to speak French, however, Susan hadn’t known this when screening people to work for Ms. Stewart and this poor fellow spoke fluent Spanish and a smattering of English, but no French.

Susan watched as the gardener blinked a few times, then obligingly ran off to fetch whatever Martha had requested. Susan, not speaking French either was wondering what Ms. Stewart had asked he bring her, perhaps a kettle, maybe a garden gnome or possibly a modicum of potpourri to sprinkle on the ground.

The man ran back to Martha with a shovel in tow, which he presented to her, rather like a peasant approaching a haughty queen of old with a gift to appease the gentry. Well, Martha exploded, yelling “I clearly asked for le râteau and here you come with la pelle! Are you an idiot? Don’t you know what le râteau is? Because this ISN’T IT!” Here was where Susan began honing her HR skills that would serve her so well at CSA.

After smoothing over the situation, a harried Susan recalled how they then went inside for an interior shot, Martha’s famous long haired Himalayan cats were carefully positioned by the set designer on the sofa next to her in an artful arrangement. This piece of the show had Martha extolling the virtues of cats and how to take care of the long haired breed.
The moment “cut” was yelled, Martha shoved the nearest cat from the sofa and was demanding the rest of the animals be removed from her furniture, and where was the cleaner with that damn “le chiffon”?