My plan was to fold laundry tonight. It’s been piling up on the chair in the bedroom for a few weeks now – and it’s started threatening to topple down toward the dresser. Besides, what could be more fun than housework?
Oh oh! <Waves hand wildly in the air> I know! I know!
Anything.
So I decided to call its bluff and see if the clothes would just fall into the drawers on their own.
(Warning: this post contains profanity for journalistic purposes. If that offends your delicate sensibilities, use some common sense and stop reading. You’ve been warned.)
Go ahead, I’ll wait. (It’s pertinent to the rest of this post.)
On our very first date, I told Jon a little white lie. “I’m just about the perfect girl,” I informed him. “I cook, I clean, I crochet, and I watch SportsCenter on a regular basis.” (Hey – batting .500 in baseball is pretty damn good.) You’ve heard about my domestic skills here, here, here and here…but more importantly, as the Bloggess pointed out – you’ve got to pick your battles.
One of our first “crucial conversations” as a married couple involved the lopsided distribution of housework. There was no argument involved; Jon was right.
I hired a housekeeper.
Problem solved! (Although, I still need to put laundry away myself. Everyone else does it wrong.) Now a housekeeper comes every other week and I don’t have to feel guilty about not doing what I probably wouldn’t have done until the next crucial conversation. (Be yourself. It’s an important lesson too. I don’t clean. And housekeepers are cheaper than marriage counseling.)
It’s funny to think how differently things may have turned out. Because a housekeeper arriving at your doorstep with the message “Knock-knock Motherfucker” is way less funny than giant metal chickens. (However, you’ve been warned should large sculptural poultry arrive on the doorstep after a particularly difficult day.)
She lives on my desk at work.
I shared the above blog post with Jon. He played the role of Victor perfectly; he rolled his eyes and stated, “You know he’s right, right?” Then he walked away. A week later, when my very own baby Beyonce arrived (I know, AWESOME!) Jon stared at it for a few seconds and then walked away shaking his head.
Anyhoo, connecting the dots: We still have a housekeeper that comes every other week. They arrive at 8 a.m., so Daddy Day Care takes the muppets on bi-weekly educational field trips. Today was a trip to the farm at the local county park.
Search’s first (and so far only) word was “dog” so we thought it reasonable to make the leap that we’re raising little animal lovers. Turns out, that love does not include chickens (of the live, not the metal, variety).
After my first meeting of the morning I shot off a quick text to Dad, “Did we like the animals?”
“No. Destroy hates chickens.”
I hate chickens.
Shortly thereafter, I received a message from Grandma Nancy with an adorable photo of my three favorite guys. It was captioned, “Destroy did NOT like the chickens.”
Apparently my little man tried to put on a brave face. He shrank back into his stroller seat and tried to stare down the foul fowl with all the tiny might he could muster. But ultimately, his eyes welled up and Daddy had to protect him from the chickens.
Let’s think back to the concept of finding yourself face-to-face with a chicken the same size as you. Yeah, I wouldn’t waste anytime staring down those spindly little legs, jiggly fleshy wattles, beady bulging eyes and pokey beak either. I’d be high-tailing it out of the park while screaming my freaked-out head off. (Not to mention the rooster is pretty much the animal kingdom’s natural alarm clock with it’s daily sunrise song of “NO SLEEP FOR YOUU. NO SLEEP FOR YOUUU.”)
Back fowl demon! (And as a side note, it does not appear the laundry fairy has yet made an appearance. Drat.)
Knock-knock motherfucker. Indeed.
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