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Venus Met Mars...And Laughed
by Christine Hohlbaum
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My
husband is a very smart man. He has a Ph.D. in Biology and works in a highly
specialized field. He uncomplainingly brings home the bacon, mows the lawn, and
takes out the trash. But, when it comes to the world of domesticity, he is as
thick as a New York City phone book. It’s not that I want him to be a woman,
exactly, but some of that womanly intuition sure would come in handy around the
house. Dealing with the children, for example, requires more than a Ph.D. It
requires common sense and a bit of practice, neither of which I believe he has.
Take the other night, for instance.
Our
nine-month-old had been crying for well over one-half hour until I finally came
to see what the matter was. Andreas had been tending to him, God bless him, and
he wasn’t having much luck. When I picked the baby up, I noticed that he was
burning up.
“Jackson
has a temperature of 102°F,” I blandly stated, lifting the thermometer to
show my dumb-founded husband whose eyes were squinting in a 2 a.m. blur. “Did
you not notice?” I continued.
"Well…he
just felt a little warm to me,” he replied, already shuffling towards the bed.
I stayed up for another hour, nursing the baby back to sleep. Andreas was
snoring within minutes.
One
day, I went into Sophia’s room to make the bed. There was a strange smell
coming from Jackson’s room. I decided to put the bed-making on hold for a
moment to investigate. Jackson’s little fist was hanging out between the crib
bars, and his blanket had been cast onto the floor. I noticed the black bean
particle on his ear first. Then, I saw his pizza-stained shirt and located the
source of the odor. His pants were so poopy that they could have filled three
diapers. He was fast asleep, and my husband was downstairs on the computer. I
immediately reproached him for treating our son like a street urchin and vowed
that he would have to give Jackson a bath when he awoke.
My
husband’s tolerance for dirt is remarkable. It doesn’t seem to bother him
when the shower curtain sticks together and oozes pink sludge because he refuses
to straighten it out after showering. In turn, I refuse to let the shower
curtain get so bad that black urchins skittle from it when I give it a shake. I
am left to scrub the shower stall despite my multiple pleas to my husband that
it might be his turn to clean the bathroom. Likewise, he doesn’t seem to care
when we have to start wearing shoes around the house because the left-over food
particles on the kitchen floor are so hard that they begin to cut our feet as we
walk over them. I am always amazed at his ability to leave the wet sponge face
down in the sink. It becomes so odiferous that even the neighborhood dog starts
to howl. The other day, the baby knocked down a plant, leaving a puddle of
potting soil next to the plant stand. It’s still sitting there.
I
take heart in knowing that I am not alone. My friend’s husband flings his
clothes down wherever he happens to be standing. She is left to decide whether
they are clean, half-clean, dirty, or filthy. She usually opts for washing
whatever is lying around. She said that if her washing machine were human,
someone might think she was having an affair with it. She even had a dream that
she called her husband Tide instead of Todd.
It’s
not that my husband doesn’t try to help around the house. He has gotten quite
good at recognizing dirty dishes when he sees them. When he complained that the
gloves I use were too small, I bought him a pair of extra large durable strength
gloves for convenience and comfort. He had the tendency of turning my gloves
inside out when he took them off, and then leaving them that way. I forever had
to turn them back inside themselves again and blow the gloves up like a balloon
to retrieve the fingers. The new glove solution worked for a while, but it
didn’t last long. He started using his fancy extra large fishing gloves for
yardwork. My dainty Playtexes once again fell victim to innards exposure.
While
he cleans the dirty dishes on occasion, getting him to recognize the dirty
countertop, crumb-filled table, and Cheerio-bestrewn floor is quite a different
matter. Even the crunch and squeak of his shoes as he passes over the kitchen
floor do little to draw his attention to the need for sweeping and mopping. Most
of the time, I can handle the task of consciousness-raising. But, yesterday
I’d had my fill of domestic instruction.
The
stars were aligned in such a way that the children napped simultaneously for an
overlapping fifty-six minutes. During that time, I scrambled about the house,
lifting off marmalade stains from the kitchen counter, polishing the furniture,
and finally Windexing the large mirror in our living room. Per my husband’s
explicit instructions, the children and I were to be out in the late afternoon.
The chances of keeping the house clean until my husband came home were high. He
was having some guy friends over to watch a pre-season football game. At the
time, it seemed like a good idea to clean the house for his friends. I wanted to
give off the impression that I had it all together despite having two kids. It
was only that evening that I asked myself, “Why did I bother?”
While
my kids and I were at Chuck E. Cheese, my husband and friends were tearing up
the house more than my two kids and their ten friends would have on any given
muddy day. When we got back several hours later, beer bottles were strewn all
over the living room. It smelled like a frat house. What was even more
unbelievable? Half of the guys had smashed chips and guacamole into the only rug
in the entire house.
“There
was a little mishap this evening, Babu,” my husband began rather sheepishly.
“The guys got a little out of hand, and the plate of guacamole just fell off
the coffee table.” He paused and looked frightened as he peered into my eyes
with a look of remorse and hope.
The
guacamole was still sitting in a heap on the rug. It looked as though the guys
had continued to eat it from the floor.
I
paused to gather strength and wisdom for a moment. “And why is it still lying
on the carpet?” I managed to ask without visibly shaking. Several cowering men
passed by my peripheral vision. I heard the slam of the screen door.
“We
weren’t certain as to which mop to use. You have so many,” Andreas explained
in a tone that revealed he believed what he was saying.
With
a straight face, I pretended to hand my husband a tablet and a glass. He looked
at me and said, “What’s that?”
“An
estrogen pill and a cup of common sense,” I said wryly. “Oh, and one more
thing,” I said as I opened the closet door, “here are all the cleaning
supplies you will need to sanitize the entire house. Call me on the cell phone
when the kids are asleep and the house is in order.” I turned on my heel, left
the house, and headed for the movies.
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This is an excerpt from Diary of a Mother: Parenting Stories and Other Stuff by Christine Louise Hohlbaum. Christine is an American author living near Munich, Germany with her husband and two children. When she's not leading playgroups, writing, or attending PTA meetings, she prefers to generally frolick. For more of Christine's writing, visit her web site at: http://mypages.iparenting.com/webs/diaryofamother/diaryofamother.html |
(c) Defenestration Magazine, 2004