Men. A Generalization.
May I start with the wisdom of Oliver Wendall Holmes...
With that in mind, let me ask a question. Why can't men do anything unless you put it on a list for them??
I do not like making the list. Making the list is one more thing I have to do. If I wanted to do one more thing by myself, I wouldn't have asked for your help in the first place.
Yesterday at 1:30 PM, the Realtor called and asked if they could show the house between 3:45 and 4:15. I heard the word yes escape my lips before my brain had a chance to stop it, but then I looked around the house and I freaked out.
The house was not show ready. I've had a busy week, so I'd let the perfection and show readiness of the house slide. I looked at my calendar and realized I had an hour long teleconference at 2 PM and with my mighty math skills calculated that gave me exactly one hour to make the house look spotless. With that sobering realization I did what any red blooded American woman would do - I panicked, I called my husband and I cried.
Sweet boy of mine offered to come home and help me. So at 1:30 in the afternoon, he dropped what he was doing and came home.
Before he got home I put Grace on basement duty, made all the beds, loaded our bathroom stuff into laundry baskets to be hidden away downstairs in the storage room, tidied the kids rooms, set out the trash to go out and started cleaning the kitchen. I had not yet started wiping down the bathrooms, taking said baskets and trash to their locations, putting away the art project spread out across the table, sweeping, vacuuming, checking on Grace's progress, etc.
Chad came home, hugged me and proceeded to stand in the kitchen and stare at me. "Hi. ok, get moving, please," I said. And then he uttered those classic man words...
"What do you need me to do?"
Really?? You have to ask. Look around you, man. The house looks like a lego bomb went off. How about start with all the lego shrapnel???
For the last 12 years, Chad and I have been locked in a gender debate over the necessity of the man list. My position is firm and clearly articulated - your eyes are your list. Look around the house, if something is out, put it away. If something is dirty, clean it. You are living the list Mister.
Chad swears he's not living the list. He'll do anything I ask, but he needs me to write it down. Unless I write it down, he swears what needs to be done is not clear to him.
"Right," I'll say, "because I like having 212 crayons on the kitchen floor."
"Well, how do I know?" he'll reply "maybe you wanted them there."
I felt a stress induced rage well up inside me, but somehow I managed to stifle it. I'm trying to get sweeter. He's a darling man who only loses his temper when I snip at him. If the only thing that brings out ugliness in him is me, then that's not good. So I'm working on it. I'm pretty sure that my first instructions came out an octave higher than my normal tone of voice, but after that I got it under control.
"How about start by taking out all the trash." Trash goes out. Chad comes back. Stares. Rage wells up. I push it back down toward my toes.
"Great, um, laundry baskets can go down." Down they go. Back he comes. Stares. Rage. Stifle. And on and on we went until we were done and ready to walk out the door, meeting over, house clean, 15 minutes to spare.
Afterwards in the car I said "You know that was classic man."
C: "What was?"
L: "Coming home to help me clean, then standing in the kitchen and staring at me until I told you what to do."
C: "Well, there wasn't a list."
Classic.
He's a good husband. I know not many girls have husband who will drop what they are doing in the middle of the day to come home and help. He's a gem. I'm so lucky. I just HATE the man list. Hate it.
"No generalization is worth a damn, including this one."
With that in mind, let me ask a question. Why can't men do anything unless you put it on a list for them??
I do not like making the list. Making the list is one more thing I have to do. If I wanted to do one more thing by myself, I wouldn't have asked for your help in the first place.
Yesterday at 1:30 PM, the Realtor called and asked if they could show the house between 3:45 and 4:15. I heard the word yes escape my lips before my brain had a chance to stop it, but then I looked around the house and I freaked out.
The house was not show ready. I've had a busy week, so I'd let the perfection and show readiness of the house slide. I looked at my calendar and realized I had an hour long teleconference at 2 PM and with my mighty math skills calculated that gave me exactly one hour to make the house look spotless. With that sobering realization I did what any red blooded American woman would do - I panicked, I called my husband and I cried.
Sweet boy of mine offered to come home and help me. So at 1:30 in the afternoon, he dropped what he was doing and came home.
Before he got home I put Grace on basement duty, made all the beds, loaded our bathroom stuff into laundry baskets to be hidden away downstairs in the storage room, tidied the kids rooms, set out the trash to go out and started cleaning the kitchen. I had not yet started wiping down the bathrooms, taking said baskets and trash to their locations, putting away the art project spread out across the table, sweeping, vacuuming, checking on Grace's progress, etc.
Chad came home, hugged me and proceeded to stand in the kitchen and stare at me. "Hi. ok, get moving, please," I said. And then he uttered those classic man words...
"What do you need me to do?"
Really?? You have to ask. Look around you, man. The house looks like a lego bomb went off. How about start with all the lego shrapnel???
For the last 12 years, Chad and I have been locked in a gender debate over the necessity of the man list. My position is firm and clearly articulated - your eyes are your list. Look around the house, if something is out, put it away. If something is dirty, clean it. You are living the list Mister.
Chad swears he's not living the list. He'll do anything I ask, but he needs me to write it down. Unless I write it down, he swears what needs to be done is not clear to him.
"Right," I'll say, "because I like having 212 crayons on the kitchen floor."
"Well, how do I know?" he'll reply "maybe you wanted them there."
I felt a stress induced rage well up inside me, but somehow I managed to stifle it. I'm trying to get sweeter. He's a darling man who only loses his temper when I snip at him. If the only thing that brings out ugliness in him is me, then that's not good. So I'm working on it. I'm pretty sure that my first instructions came out an octave higher than my normal tone of voice, but after that I got it under control.
"How about start by taking out all the trash." Trash goes out. Chad comes back. Stares. Rage wells up. I push it back down toward my toes.
"Great, um, laundry baskets can go down." Down they go. Back he comes. Stares. Rage. Stifle. And on and on we went until we were done and ready to walk out the door, meeting over, house clean, 15 minutes to spare.
Afterwards in the car I said "You know that was classic man."
C: "What was?"
L: "Coming home to help me clean, then standing in the kitchen and staring at me until I told you what to do."
C: "Well, there wasn't a list."
Classic.
He's a good husband. I know not many girls have husband who will drop what they are doing in the middle of the day to come home and help. He's a gem. I'm so lucky. I just HATE the man list. Hate it.
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