Housework

(Please read the commentary at the end)

You like peace. You like calm. You like watching sports. You like your house. You like half your stuff.

I think those are pretty good reasons for wanting to do some housework. But I have about 750 more words to kill here, so please let me elaborate. It’s only fair you do some of the house work. I recently conducted a very non scientific study, and my results told me that guys create most the messes. Sure, there might be very good reasons why those stale bag of chips and glass half full of something had been sitting on the end table for 3 days. But let’s try to avoid pesky things here like logic, common sense and the health department. Women are great with actually putting their dirty clothes in the hampers. Men sometimes seem to think the dirty socks go on the hamper till as such time there is need to put many dirty clothes in the hamper. I still argue that this does in fact count as cleaning up the floor.

Let’s get this out in the open. This is a man versus woman thing here. Fellas, we see this issue differently than the women. I am not saying it’s right or wrong, but it is in our inherent wiring. I have found out the hard way that there are 2 levels of clean. There is “guy clean”, whereby the male can survey the scene and declare that it is ‘clean’. And there is something else just called ‘clean’. The difference is hardly visible to the male eye. Thankfully, the female eye can point out the many instances of something not being clean enough.

Let’s look at something as simple as vacuuming. It’s a quite simple task. Turn on, run over floor and rugs until all debris is cleaned up. Pick up that annoying thread on the floor that won’t come up, then throw it on another section of the floor for another attempt. The floors are now “guy clean”. Resume bump-on- a- log formation on couch. But, no, you are not off the hook. She will walk in and say how you didn’t move any of the furniture around. You try to logic with her, saying, “But, honey, no one goes under the couch and the tables never move.” She will politely remind you that now “nothing is clean” and you better get to moving. Yea, I don’t get it either.

Another example is doing dishes. “Guy clean” is to take all the dirty dishes and throw them into the dishwasher. Never mind the fact you are never the one to actually turn the dish washer on or remove the dishes. Yes, yes, these seem like extraneous steps to me too, but apparently, this series of moves will actually reveal clean glasses. Wacky, I know.

Often, chores are a trap. She won’t tell you that, but I will. She lays the trap every Saturday and Sunday morning. Shortly after waking up, she will coolly ask you, “So what do you have planned to do today?” Here, she sets the trap, so be prepared. Right now, she wants to hear that you have a litany of housework to do. “Well, geez , honey, today I gotta dust, vacuum, pick up the dog poo (you earn bonus points for anything to do with poo), cut the lawn, blah blah, blah.” Honestly, after hitting her with the first 4 or 5, she will tune you out. She just wants to know that you are thinking of doing stuff around the house, too.

I have learned you have to give to get. If you are a football fan, I think you know what I am talking about. I will give up most of my Saturday to get Sunday ‘off’. If she sees me busting my butt around the house on Saturday, she is far less likely to give me any crap on Sunday. The fact that I totally mess up everything I just cleaned on Sunday is largely irrelevant. Besides, you always have to be sure you have something to do next.

Women are just turned on by guys doing house work. So it is to your benefit to make sure she sees you being Domestic Avenger. Make sure she’s around you when you’re fixing that light –i.e. changing the light bulb. You better be in view when fixing the smoke alarm –i.e. replacing the battery. Be sure to be seen walking through the house with a hammer and tape measure from time to time. Disappear into the garage and hammer the wall for all I care. The point is, she will be turned on just by the mere thought you are doing something manly. Be prepared if she does ask you what you are doing, though. It helps to talk the talk. The proper placement of pronouns and a curse word can work wonders here. For example saying something like, “I’m fixing those doors” or “I’m fixing that window” is pure gold.

A simple way to avoid confrontations is to clearly assign who is to do what. For example, when we moved into this house, she said I would do the vacuuming and dusting. Seems simple enough. However, the lesson I learned here is to prepare for the future. In my case, we got a yellow Lab shortly thereafter. In case you don’t know, they shed like no one’s business, and apparently all our rugs act as Velcro for the hair. I kind of hosed myself there. I often wonder if she had that figured out all along.

Sometimes when you split the duties there is still more work involved. Take doing the laundry for existence. Were you shocked to find out she separated the colors from the whites, too? Every time I do her wash with mine, I get a list of what can go in the dryer and what has to air dry. Another lesson I can pass along to you guys; never under any circumstances put their underwear in the dryer. Heaven forbid a pair of undies shrink, then it’s red alert to the “am I getting fat” discussion. There are no winners when that happens.

Hype yourself up. Are you taking out the trash? Not if she doesn’t know about it. Make sure you tell her everything you are doing. “Hey, honey, do you have anything to throw out? I’m taking out the trash?” “I gotta run to the market, can I pick anything up for you?”

Don’t forget chores to do outside as well. You want to be high profile here. Cut the lawn, shovel, trim the bushes. You can put this stuff in the bank for later. She might see you peacefully sitting on the couch, watching the big State game when she goes off on some tangent. She sounds like the teacher from Charlie Brown. Here, you can say, “Hey, I was outside painting all day! Just ask the neighbors.”

It is to everyone’s benefit that you pick up the slack around the house. Sometimes it really is something as simple as taking out a full bag of trash. Other times, it gets more complex. Regardless, you share the place, so you should care for the place.

So in conclusion, there are far too many benefits not to do your share. If you are not slick, you will suffer. And suffer. And suffer. If you are slick, you can get your happily ever after.

DVD Bonus Material
Commentary
Right, so you're thinking what the hell got me to write something like this? And where are all the dirty words. So I was perusing the writers website I joined (Helium) and I was going through their contest topics. (They have weekly contests in a variety of topics. hardly ever do they have anything in the humor category.) I saw they had one topic like "why men should share with the housework. I feel one of my stronger areas is males vs females, so I felt this was an easy one and got all inspired to write. I checked out a few of the leading articles, and they all had a certain-if small-does of humor. And if that namby-pamby humor would work, surely something as edgy as mine would go over huge. So this is an example of me writing "clean". Kind of like an every day observational type thing. And I really do think this is funny for not using words like cocksucker.

I used another trick to help me. I immediately divide my readers into men vs women. I directly appeal to all my brothers. It's consciously written for a guy to read, and hopefully understand (and laugh and vote me to the top). And yes, it is humor driven. I tried to chop it down a bit, but it still runs at 3 pages, where most articles are barely a full page. I made one critical error, and had something screwy with it that really killed a strong joke. It was in this passage:
The proper placement of pronouns and a curse word can work wonders here. For example saying something like, “I’m fixing those doors” or “I’m fixing that window” is pure gold.
The first error is the use of the word "pronoun" I just put that it to correct it later. Words like 'this', 'that' are actually articles. I left in the wrong word. And the screwy thing that happened is that the site actually edited out the word . WdaF? So now you read that punchline as "I'm fixing those doors" or "I'm fixing that window". Fuck, talk about killing a strong joke. And I admit the ending was a bit weak, but it was a compromise.

My brilliant piece of literary wisdom ended up 40th out of 53 articles. I really didn't think it would sink that far. And I guess mostly women read the site and decided to take a shit all over me. Fucking ho-was. Anyway, I just forced myself to read the winning article. It was written by someone who claims to be a guy and married, but his name is "Pierre" so make any wild assertations you will. While it too was 3 pages long, man o man, did it sound like afternoon talk show puke. If this is what passes for "talent", I will never be a writer.

But I am more thankful that you have spent the time to read this and the reasoning behind it. That means more to me than those dunderheads over at Helium. I won't stop writing for them when the topic is right. And I expect more basement dwelling in the contests, but that's OK. Now if you will excuse me, I have to get my wife to do the goddamn dishes, clean the fucking bathroom and cut the fucking lawn.