I post this entry only at the encouragement of a true friend… Should you continue to read this post I must apologize now for any stereotypical comments as they are not intended to offend, however… I am about at the end of my fraying rope and need to seriously vent for a brief moment… This entry is very different from what I originally planned on for this blog but I am finding that inspiration to write in ANY emotion is still indeed Inspiration and helps to relieve some of the stress and energy that goes into my body if I keep the anger inside… So Maybe this blog WILL become a useful tool as well as a place for the creative writings I’d planned on using it for, lol…
Reader Beware… LOL!!!
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01-14-2007
The House has just settled down… There is nothing in the background to hear except the whirring of the ceiling fan above me. And the faint whisper of the soft snoring coming from the bedroom, he hasn’t really even gotten started yet. The volume will grow stronger with each breath until I can hear him loud and clear… Even through the closed door. He eases into sleep like I ease into writing… Softly at first and then once he’s in… He’s in for the long haul. Knocked out soundly climbing into those dreams of his that take him to places without stress, without anger, where occasionally I hear him giggle or even verbalize things… Once he even verbalized my name during an erotic dream. I could tell due to the soft moaning and the undulating of his hips ever so slightly- even in his sleep. He was also rock hard… A definite confirmation…
He asked if I was ready to go to bed. I said “In a little while…”
When he asked me… I was up to my elbows in soap suds and dirty dishes trying to clean up our kitchen from the small intimate dinner we’d had with a girlfriend and her significant other. I had at least an hour to go in my current condition on crutches to finish up everything I needed to do before retiring for the night. This question he posed to me while it was too much effort for him to go retrieve our mattress pad from the clothes dryer, as it had to be washed earlier in the day from the mess the newest puppy had left on it this morning. It was clean, it was dry and yet a simple walk to the dryer in our garage was way too much effort for him to muster while I did the dishes and cookware all from a party of 4, standing on only 1 good leg… (No Weight bearing on the broken ankle and leg for 6 months, remember?)
So here I am… Irritated as usual posing a question to any willing responses out there… Are some men just born naturally lazy when it comes to their household? And Is it an issue that can ever be fixed?
First… Let me give credit where credit is due… He Does work 12 hour days 5 days a week and a 10 hour day on 1 day a week… He averages about 65 hours on any given week- at his workplace… Granted some days are busier than others, but he does pull the time there. His Only day off is Sunday and I do my best Not to ask him to do anything much on Sundays because it IS his only day off. When we started this arrangement of me following my career path, we knew I would have the more flexible schedule and he would be forced to pull long hours to keep us going until my business grew strong, so I took on the greater majority of household duties. This was Fine with me until I broke my leg and I became unable to complete some of my tasks in any sort of efficient way, some not at all. However, somewhere along the way— EVERYTHING became my responsibility, other than cooking. He likes to cook, and did a whole lot more of it in the first year we were together… Now he wants fast-food for the convenience of it and I’m sick and tired of having to choose between Wendy’s and Taco Bell, or maybe let’s change it up a little and go to Arby’s… What a stretch!! So now I’m dabbling in cooking simply so we don’t have to eat out 6 out of 7 nights a week.
Last night we got in a huge argument because he didn’t want to clean the puppy’s poo off of our backdoor steps (lately that seems to be where she’s landing) at 10pm at night when I asked him if he’d had a chance to do it earlier in the day… Granted- It was 10pm at night, but he’d said at 10am that morning that he was going to accomplish two important things during the day. #1 was to clean off a week’s worth of puppy poo from the steps and #2 was to take down our HOLIDAY LIGHTS!!!
Ummmm… Yes, we are in the third week of January and my husband has still not taken them down. I’m so embarrassed. I mean, really!! Our house is not so big that it would take him anymore than MAYBE 20minutes to retrieve them from their little plastic clips on the shingles. I helped him put them up, I should know! He needs someone to hold the ladder on the steps because of the height of the apex on our roof, it’s high… even for him. If it weren’t for my current incapacitation, I would have already had them down two weeks ago right after New Years Day… Along with the rest of the neighborhood!
But That isn’t even what we fought about… I did not nag him about the lights yesterday because it WAS Playoffs Day. And I do try my best to not interrupt the pleasure he has in the game… I am learning it too and actually beginning to like football now that I understand more of what’s going on. But the poo… The Poo was a different issue all together. It is RIGHT on the steps. It is waiting for AnyOne who steps out there to be attacked. Shortly thereafter the poo will make its way into the house via hitching a ride on some poor unsuspecting shoe and Voilà… now it’s all over the place.
Completely Unacceptable. This behavior is stubborn, selfish, irresponsible and childish. To make matters worse, he starts in that condescending voice with the “Yes, Ma’am, I’s got yours chores done now, I’s swept the steps witchur broom, do ya wanta me to clean dems off too?” I was furious.
A. Do Not act as if I have been ordering your ass around like a slave when I’ve been doing my very best broken or not to continue doing all that I could around the house so that you wouldn’t have to.
B. Are you kidding Me?? No, Really, Are you serious?? You, (being a supposedly Grown Man) are asking if you should actually clean and wipe canine feces off of the steps we walk on or is it ok to just leave the residual poo there?? I looked at him as if he had three heads… EWWWWW!!! Why was this even a question?? OF COURSE YOU SHOULD CLEAN IT OFF MORON!!!!
For as much credit I give my husband for being highly intelligent, sometimes… Not that often… but Sometimes he amazes me at the level of his blatant stupidity!
Really… I’m not here to bitch and moan… Ok, well tonight I am, lol! But it was not my main purpose in writing tonight. Really I just wanted to know from ANY male out there… What is it about working so many hours that grants a feeling of entitlement and even gives permission to you NOT to feel responsible for ANY of the household goings-on?? If the bills are paid does that mean that the inside of the house could fall to pieces and you really wouldn’t care?? Or is does it all stem off of being a Mama’s Boy who was never taught simple things like how to properly wash a dish, because his were always done for him? Or how to pick his dirty clothes off of the floor and put them in a dirty clothes hamper that only rests 2 feet from where you remove your clothes, because that was always done for him too? Or how to fold laundry as soon as the dryer is done in order to minimize wrinkles and such? Or how to squeeze a small trigger to a user-friendly Clorox Wipe-Up Bottle over some freaking poo on the steps, and then… wait… one step further… use a rag or even some disposable paper towels to wipe over it and CLEAN the poo away?????
And people ask me why I waited thirty years before getting married??
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