As I have been a bit under the weather lately, my wonderful husband has been picking up the slack around the house. Before I say anything else, I'd like to make it clear that I really do appreciate all his hard work. Really. That said, though, there are a few things about his housekeeping that I'd like to mention. Let me know if I'm alone in this, or if this is some kind of deficiency all men have.
1. The other day he said (and this is a direct quote): "The laundry is all caught up." I was shocked, because honestly I think the laundry was all caught up once in the entire time I've been doing laundry, and I called everyone I knew to gloat about it. (I really did. You can ask Jen, I was all "Hey, how's your laundry going? Not bad? Still in the rinse cycle? Then you still have a load of whites to do? Awww... poor thing. Mine's all done. Yep, nothin' in my hampers." I'm a good friend like that.) So the fact that my husband, who had only taken the laundry over a few days previously, was able to fight through the gigantic piles of dirty clothes and get them all washed, dried and folded- without being snarky about it- amazed me. I was in awe of his housekeeping prowess.
Fast forward a few hours, when I actually walked past the laundry room and noticed that not only was the huge pile of laundry still there, it was all still dirty. At first I was taken aback- but he said the laundry was all caught up? Then I thought about it. Maybe 'all caught up' means something different to men? Maybe, to him, 'all caught up' means the five loads that I had washed during the week and had asked him to put in the dryer had actually gotten dried? Or the three baskets that have been waiting to be folded for months now are actually folded and possibly even put away? In this house, either of those would be a big accomplishment. That must be what he meant, I decided. So, while he didn't accomplish the impossible task of 'catching up on the laundry,' he did quite a bit, and I was still impressed (although to a lesser degree than before).
Fast forward a bit more... when I went in the basement where the dryer is, and I noticed that there are not one, not two, but three (overflowing) baskets of laundry sitting there. Two are not dried. The other is not folded. Also, my keen sense of smell told me these are the same baskets of laundry that had been sitting there all week. Which really made me wonder: If he didn't mean the laundry was all washed, and he didn't mean the laundry was all dried and he didn't mean the laundry was all folded... What the hell did he mean by 'the laundry is all caught up'?! But no, I told myself, I am not going to question him on this. He's been working hard all week, trying to help me out. I am not going to make a big deal about the fact that while he said 'the laundry is all caught up' I have found evidence to the contrary.
Of course, this noble stance of mine lasted all of an hour, at which point I (very sweetly) said, "Hey, honey? Remember when you said 'The laundry is all caught up'? What did you mean by that, exactly? 'Cause when a woman says that, she means all the laundry in the house is done."
My husband looked at me in alarm and said "Oh I didn't mean that!"
"Yeah, I know you didn't, 'cause I saw the dirty laundry and the laundry that's waiting to be dried and the laundry that's waiting to be folded... so I was just wondering what about the laundry was 'all caught up'."
He mumbled for a bit and finally I was able to get out of him that what he meant by 'the laundry is all caught up' is that he had washed a bit of it, and dried some and even folded a basket or two. And now he was done. He looked at the mounds of clothes in various rooms of the house and decided Eh, I've done enough for today. Which would have been fine except that he told me the laundry was All. Caught. Up. Clearly, he had heard the phrase before and figured he'd try it out regardless of the fact that he had no idea what it actually meant. It's like when a three-year-old drops the F-bomb. Or I talk about plumbing. We don't know what we're saying, we just like the way plumbbob sounds! And while I understand my husband's desire to use the phrase 'the laundry is all caught up' he'd better make damn sure that the next time I hear it, he's got bureaus full of folded socks to prove it.
2. Yesterday, I was lying in bed around dinnertime, with a nose like a faucet and an upset stomach. My husband yelled upstairs that he was going to make pasta and chicken cutlets for dinner. "That's fine," I replied thinking As long as he feeds the kid and doesn't mention anything else to me about food I really don't care if they eat Spam for dinner.
Thirty seconds later, my husband yelled, "I thought we had pasta."
"We do." Please don't make me think about food right now.
(Pause while he looks.)
"I don't see it."
"It's there." God, if I have to come down there and find the freakin' pasta, you're the one cleaning up after me!
"I don't see it."
*Groan* "All right-"
"Oh wait, I found some egg noodles. Do you think those are okay?"
Egg noodles? I guess they're fine. I mean I've never had them with pasta sauce and chicken cutlets, but this is the guy who eats anchovies. How bad could egg noodles and pasta sauce be? "Yeah, egg noodles are great."
" 'Kay. Do you want some?"
"NO! Are you sure there's no pasta? I could have sworn there was some-"
"Nope, no pasta. But don't worry. I'll make these."
"Great." Whatever.
Care to guess what I found this morning?
That's two...
That makes four...
Okay that's six. Six boxes of pasta in the very same cupboard my husband swore he checked last night. When I showed him the evidence, he said, "Huh." Then he thought for a minute and said "But those two were behind something."
"Yeah," I said "they were behind the pasta sauce."
"Huh," he said again. Then he shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
In my next life, I'm so coming back as a man.
.JPG)
|