Allegedly purloined Super Soakers, "pretty destructive" guests and a maid who got uppity upon landing a plum assignment.

Such was the stuff of Monday's installment of Upstairs, Downstairs, also known as the Michael Jackson molestation trial.

Former and current staffers of Jackson's Neverland Ranch were called to the stand to help the defense undermine prosecution witnesses who had claimed they saw the pop star alternately shower with, kiss, hold captive or knock back drinks with boys.

Jackson is formally charged with molesting and bartending to one boy at Neverland in 2003. The singer is also accused of conspiring to keep the child and his family under wraps until the clan could be shipped off to Brazil.

In the Santa Maria, California, courthouse, ex-Neverland housekeeper Gayle Goforth told jurors that the accuser's mother once inquired about working as a maid at the ranch the woman would later call a prison.

"I just saw her being a guest and everything [and] that it wasn't appropriate," Goforth testified, explaining why she didn't take up the woman's request for a job application.

Under cross-examination by the prosecution, Goforth allowed that her conversation with mother occurred in 2000, some three years before the alleged conspiring, molesting and drink-pouring went down.

Goforth also came forth with a juicy tidbit about Adrian McManus, a fellow ex-Neverland maid who'd testified for the prosecution.

According to Goforth, McManus "changed" when she was assigned to clean Jackson's master bedroom. "[It was] like she was above everybody," Goforth said.

Last month, McManus told jurors that, in the early 1990s, she saw Jackson give pecks on the cheek to a prepubescent Macaulay Culkin and another boy, Brett Barnes, and kiss yet another boy--the child at the center of the 1993-94 molestation investigation--on the lips.

Barnes, now 23, last week personally refuted accusations he was inappropriately touched by Jackson. Culkin, 24, remains on the defense's witness list, but has yet to appear in court.

Elsewhere, Francin Contreras, another ex-Neverland staffer, testified that McManus always "talked good" about Jackson, and never said anything about her salacious allegations during the height of the 1993-94 probe.

Continuing to dish the dirt, Contreras talked of seeing McManus' home filled with items--hats, pajamas, watches, T-shirts--that were the property of Neverland Ranch.

The prosecution, which knows that jurors know that McManus was once ordered to pay her former boss $35,000 for plucking a Jackson-drawn Elvis Presley from the Neverland trash and selling it to a tabloid, stepped up for its besieged witness, suggesting that McManus routinely brought home Jackson's clothes so that she could iron them at night.

Asked Contreras: "How could you iron a hat?"

Contreras also repeated a previously heard charge that McManus made off with some Super Soaker water guns intended for needy children visiting Neverland at Christmastime.

Since almost no Jackson witness, defense or prosecution, makes it out of Santa Maria unscathed, prosecutor Ronald J. Zonen took a whack at Contreras for being fired from a subsequent job at Mervyn's department store.

"Did you get fired from Mervyn's for stealing?" Zonen asked.

"No," Contreras replied.

"Were you prosecuted for stealing from Mervyn's?" Zonen continued.

"No," Contreras said. "It was trespassing."

The women never did quite get to explain how she came to be accused of trespassing at a store she worked in.

Also on the stand: longtime Neverland employees Violet Gaitan Silva and Joe Marcus. Silva is the estate's safety coordinator; Marcus, the ranch manager.

Both had contact with the current accuser's family. Both said that the family appeared to be enjoying themselves during their Neverland visits in early 2003. Both said the mother never complained about anything, much less about being a hostage.

In a key bit of testimony, Marcus talked of taking the mother and her two eldest sons on a shopping trip to Neverland-adjacent Solvang, California, during the time of the brood's alleged confinement. On another occasion during the same period, he said, he picked them up from a dentist's appointment in Solvang.

Marcus, whose father managed Neverland Ranch before it was called Neverland Ranch, also was a font of information about the estate. He talked about how under Jackson's direction the ranch was outfitted with a train, a train station, an amusement park, a zoo, a "teepee area," a campfire, and a "water fort" wherein fun would be had with "water cannons and water balloon launchers."

Silva, meanwhile, described the accuser's mother as being up one day, and quiet the next, and said that the woman's teen-aged daughter seemed to be in charge of disciplining the two brothers.

According to Silva, discipline was in short supply. The brothers--the oldest of whom is Jackson's accuser--were "pretty reckless," she said, driving golf carts too fast and getting behind the wheel of a mini-van and even Jackson's personal SUV.

A notice at Neverland's guard shack from early 2003 advised security personnel that "the kids are not allowed to leave per Joe [Marcus]." The prosecution earlier had seized on that posting as proof of the conspiracy plot. But Silva, who was in charge of Neverland security in 2003, explained that the note meant that the children, known for their wild-driving ways, were not to be turned loose on the community at-large without adult supervision.

About the best prosecutor Tom Sneddon could do to salvage a moment from that sort of testimony was to point out an earlier statement by Silva in which she said that she would not allow her own children to participate in Neverland activities.

Under questioning by defense attorney Robert M. Sanger, Silva explained her children did, in fact, attend family-day events at Neverland. She said that while she wasn't concerned by what she saw going on at the ranch, "some of the activity was beyond my comfort level." Sanger didn't press for an explanation.

Following the day's proceedings, Jackson spokeswoman said the entertainer and his balky back were "not doing well."

"He's very physically tired," Raymone Bain told reporters. "He was uncomfortable in court."

Bain also suggested that, despite Mesereau's hints to the contrary during his opening arguments, Jackson might not take the stand in his own defense.

"Michael wants the world to know that he did not molest any children," Bain said. "He would not be opposed to testifying if the defense attorneys wanted him to and he would not testify if they didn't want him to."

Jackson, 46, has pleaded innocent to all charges.