Thursday, September 07, 2006
Wifely Duties
Yesterday, I did something incredibly weird and atypical. I ironed my clothes. I hate ironing. It’s quite possibly the worst job ever invented. In fact, I think the world would be a much better place if everybody just agreed that we should all wear wrinkled clothes. It’s either that or we all wear spandex, and frankly, I’m about 3 years of non-stop running (and a minor eating disorder) away from being prepared for daily spandex exposure.
Unfortunately, I have yet to convince The Wife that ironing is part of her “wifely” duties. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve been able to convince her that she has ANY “wifely” duties. Except maybe child-bearing. Of course, not recognizing “wifely” duties pays off for me because I’m terrible at “husbandly” (it’s a word, trust me) duties. Sure, I kill bugs when necessary, but home maintenance? Ha! I cause more damage than I fix.
(That said, I did fix our toilet the other day. That made me feel quite manly. Which just means that I’m going to come home and find the whole house flooded because I didn’t tighten a nut correctly. Don’t think it can happen? Well, I didn’t think I’d find a hole in my living room ceiling after working on the plumbing in the master bathroom. But I did.)
Anyway, I’ve been going through a lot of clothes lately. I blame Luke for the most part. I can wear most of my work shirts a couple/few times before I have to wash them. That might sound disgusting to those of you in construction. (And if you work in construction and read this blog, you have serious issues. Only people with time to waste at work should be reading this.) But, I don’t exactly break a sweat sitting at my computer all day. Unless you count the sweat I get when I’ve been reading ESPN.com and my manager appears behind me to talk about a project I’ve been avoiding.
Luke has a great habit of ruining my shirts though. I’ll come home from work and he’ll give me a hug. In theory, it sounds like a great way to come home. In reality though, it’s not. Lately, Luke’s had a runny nose. And of course, Luke MUST rub his nose on my shirt. So that puts it right in the wash. (Unless of course, Luke was eating Cheetos right before I walked in the door. Then he’d need to rub his hands or mouth on my shirt. Luke’s quite precious that way.)
All these dirty clothes have really clogged up our washer. Neither The Wife or I are big fans of doing laundry. I think I cope with it better than she does. But only by the slightest of margins. (For example, if The Wife is the Chicago Cubs, I’m the Pittsburgh Pirates. Slightly better, but still really crappy.)
What’s funny is how much I criticize The Wife on her laundry techniques. Surprisingly, I’m quite anal about how my clothes are folded. In particular, my work pants (several of which are micro-fiber), which I try to fold as soon as they come out of the dryer. That way, they don’t get wrinkled and I don’t have to iron them. I also try to do the same with all my work shirts. The Wife meanwhile just throws them all in the laundry basket so she can fold them all. What makes that funny is that I ROUTINELY shrink her clothing. Honestly, every other time I do laundry, I’ve ruined at least one article of clothing of hers. Yet here I am complaining about how she folds my clothes. Like I said, I’m a great husband.
Anyway, after the last few weeks of laundry, I put aside shirts and pants that need to be ironed before I can wear them. Yesterday I decided to finally tackle that pile. By my count, there were about 15 shirts and 2 pairs of pants. (Note, that pile would have been bigger were it not for a couple of “emergency” ironing sessions when I realized that I had no clean pants/shirts to take to work on a particular morning.)
The ironing session was rather uneventful. (Did you really expect anything else?) I got to watch a little Thomas the Tank Engine with Luke until he went to bed. Then I really dumbed it down by watching American Chopper. I’ve been TiVo-ing this show for awhile now, but I think I’m getting tired of it. I like watching them build motorcycles, but now the Teutul has been getting on my nerves. With the success of the show, they’ve made a lot of money. So now they have no problem crashing their cars into buildings and so forth. It’s like found-money to them, so they don’t care about wasting it. And that vexes me.
So what’s the point of all of this? Well, I now have a much larger wardrobe and I’ve cleaned our TiVo of a lot of American Chopper episodes. All in all, I’d call it a very productive Wednesday night.
Unfortunately, I have yet to convince The Wife that ironing is part of her “wifely” duties. Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve been able to convince her that she has ANY “wifely” duties. Except maybe child-bearing. Of course, not recognizing “wifely” duties pays off for me because I’m terrible at “husbandly” (it’s a word, trust me) duties. Sure, I kill bugs when necessary, but home maintenance? Ha! I cause more damage than I fix.
(That said, I did fix our toilet the other day. That made me feel quite manly. Which just means that I’m going to come home and find the whole house flooded because I didn’t tighten a nut correctly. Don’t think it can happen? Well, I didn’t think I’d find a hole in my living room ceiling after working on the plumbing in the master bathroom. But I did.)
Anyway, I’ve been going through a lot of clothes lately. I blame Luke for the most part. I can wear most of my work shirts a couple/few times before I have to wash them. That might sound disgusting to those of you in construction. (And if you work in construction and read this blog, you have serious issues. Only people with time to waste at work should be reading this.) But, I don’t exactly break a sweat sitting at my computer all day. Unless you count the sweat I get when I’ve been reading ESPN.com and my manager appears behind me to talk about a project I’ve been avoiding.
Luke has a great habit of ruining my shirts though. I’ll come home from work and he’ll give me a hug. In theory, it sounds like a great way to come home. In reality though, it’s not. Lately, Luke’s had a runny nose. And of course, Luke MUST rub his nose on my shirt. So that puts it right in the wash. (Unless of course, Luke was eating Cheetos right before I walked in the door. Then he’d need to rub his hands or mouth on my shirt. Luke’s quite precious that way.)
All these dirty clothes have really clogged up our washer. Neither The Wife or I are big fans of doing laundry. I think I cope with it better than she does. But only by the slightest of margins. (For example, if The Wife is the Chicago Cubs, I’m the Pittsburgh Pirates. Slightly better, but still really crappy.)
What’s funny is how much I criticize The Wife on her laundry techniques. Surprisingly, I’m quite anal about how my clothes are folded. In particular, my work pants (several of which are micro-fiber), which I try to fold as soon as they come out of the dryer. That way, they don’t get wrinkled and I don’t have to iron them. I also try to do the same with all my work shirts. The Wife meanwhile just throws them all in the laundry basket so she can fold them all. What makes that funny is that I ROUTINELY shrink her clothing. Honestly, every other time I do laundry, I’ve ruined at least one article of clothing of hers. Yet here I am complaining about how she folds my clothes. Like I said, I’m a great husband.
Anyway, after the last few weeks of laundry, I put aside shirts and pants that need to be ironed before I can wear them. Yesterday I decided to finally tackle that pile. By my count, there were about 15 shirts and 2 pairs of pants. (Note, that pile would have been bigger were it not for a couple of “emergency” ironing sessions when I realized that I had no clean pants/shirts to take to work on a particular morning.)
The ironing session was rather uneventful. (Did you really expect anything else?) I got to watch a little Thomas the Tank Engine with Luke until he went to bed. Then I really dumbed it down by watching American Chopper. I’ve been TiVo-ing this show for awhile now, but I think I’m getting tired of it. I like watching them build motorcycles, but now the Teutul has been getting on my nerves. With the success of the show, they’ve made a lot of money. So now they have no problem crashing their cars into buildings and so forth. It’s like found-money to them, so they don’t care about wasting it. And that vexes me.
So what’s the point of all of this? Well, I now have a much larger wardrobe and I’ve cleaned our TiVo of a lot of American Chopper episodes. All in all, I’d call it a very productive Wednesday night.
