I’ve gotta say; this house-husband thing isn’t working out the way I had thought it would. I came into this expecting hours and hours of Oprah Winfrey and bonbons. Since I’m not really much of an Oprah fan, I thought I could substitute John Wayne or Clint Eastwood movies (I figured that whole Oprah thing was probably more of a guideline than a rule).

Well, I’m two weeks into this, and not only have I not had time to watch a single moment of Duke-based entertainment, I still don’t even know what a freaking bonbon is, or where to get ’em. Obviously, I’m doing something terribly wrong. I mean besides the things that I know I’m doing wrong.

Take today for example. It started out pretty good. I drove my truck into town and filled up all the gas cans for the lawn mower. Came home and filled up the mower. I even checked the oil and hydraulic fluid. I was feeling pretty darn manly, I don’t mind telling you (Did I mention that our mower is a Dixie Chopper? Advertised as the World’s Fastest Mower. How manly is that?). You could almost hear the testosterone coursing through my veins, like a bullet-train through a tunnel in Manly Mountain. For two or three glorious hours, I mowed the crap outa this place (in many places, literally. We have a lot of dogs). But like all good things, it came to an end, and I had to return to the house to fulfill my domestic responsibilities.

Now, at the risk of being called a girly-man, I’ll admit I don’t really mind doing some of the household chores. When you think about it, even the word household is really kind of manly. Household. To hold the house. It conjures up visions of defending your castle, even if your castle is a split-level 3 bedroom with 2 1/2 baths and an attached garage, and you’re only holding it against dirty dishes and dust bunnies (hey, allergies kill, ya know?). You just have to use a feudal mind-set.

Anyway, I like to crank up some Stones, or Rush, or Lucero, and rock out while I do the dishes or whatever. But today was laundry. I freaking hate laundry. But, my wife, the hard-working and diligent Jess, is out there bringing home the bacon, so fair’s fair, right? WRONG! I was taught to work by my Dad, who taught me that if you do things right, then you make things easier later, a philosophy that I have been unable to impress on the partially hyper-efficient light-of-my-life, Jess.

One of the things that I previously admired and valued in her was her ability to get naked faster than any other human being in history. Even in winter, when she, as a firm believer in dressing in layers who hates to be cold, can divest herself of approximately 12 layers of clothes in about 3 seconds. Time to go to bed? FFFTHOOP! She’s naked, in less time than it takes to type the sound effect. As I said before, I always thought of it as one of her most endearing qualities. Until I had to start doing the laundry. Now I’m faced with trying to separate all these layers into individual pieces of clothing so I can get ’em in with the correct load (and before you accuse me of being overly fussy and not nearly manly enough about the laundry, let me just say that, inconvenient as it is, I feel like I need to do my best for her. After all, she’s always done her best for me.). The point is, her method of undressing significantly increases the time and effort required to do the laundry correctly.

Of course, once the laundry is done, it’s time to fold the laundry. Now, when I was single, I never bothered folding laundry. I figured, screw it, it’s clean, that’s the important thing. Worrying about wrinkles just seemed silly and vain when there are so many really important issues in the world. However, once we were married, the lovely and sometimes terrifyingly persuasive Jess pointed out to me the error of my thinking. Honestly, I was okay with it (as I said before, it’s always best to defer to her anyway), but that was when she was doing the laundry. Now, I’m doing the folding, and I gotta say, I’m not crazy about it. Once again, her method of undressing comes into play. Not only does she get undressed incredibly quickly, she also manages to turn nearly every piece of clothing inside out, although, as an added challenge to me, she does like to leave a shirt or two right side out, and the occasional pair of pants 1/2 inside out. This usually causes multiple efforts on my part, because I just naturally turn all of her stuff inside out as it comes out of the dryer, in order to get it right side out. It is far more confusing and stressful than folding laundry should be.

Then, there’s the sheer quantity of laundry, almost all of it hers. I, myself, take the philosophy that if I didn’t do something today to get my clothes dirty, then there’s really no need to change them. Her viewpoint is different. It’s amazing the amount of clothes, even underwear, she goes through in a week. I mean, it’s like she changes them every day or something! She is an amazing woman.

Anyway, I finally get the laundry done. She gets home, and decides to go take a nap while I fix supper. Meatloaf, one of our favorite meals:

2 pounds of hamburger

2 big onions

2 eggs

1.5 tubes of Ritz crackers

Italian seasoning (how ever much seems appropriate)

1 fistfull of ketchup.

Mix it up, mold it into a loaf, stick it in the over for 1.5 hours at 350 or 400 degrees, or just remove before it starts smoking.

Since the dogs went with her to take a nap, I know there’s very little chance of her actually getting to sleep. It’s much more likely that they’ll use her as a trampoline until she takes them outside to play ball, so I figure I’ll do something, give her a little extra thrill. She has said that nothing turns her on like the sight of a man doing housework. I figure, if that turns her on, then just think how excited she’ll be if she comes out of the bedroom to find me cooking dinner . . . wait for it . . . naked! I mean, she works hard, she deserves an extra treat now and then. I mean, I certainly wouldn’t mind coming home and finding her cooking naked. Or vacuuming naked, or watching t.v. naked, or really just doing anything or even nothing at all, as long as she’s naked. Granted, it never happened, but she reads these blogs too, so . . . (hint, hint, please!, hint).

Okay now, before you get all freaked out, I’m not completely insensitive to the need for culinary sanitation, I mean after all, when you find a hair in your food, it’s nice to know that it (probably) came from the cook’s head (another reason to always be nice to restaurant staff), even if you were the cook. So, I nipped into the other room, and slipped into my culinary-themed banana hammock; the one with “kiss the cook” printed on it. And yes, it is in fine print. So what?(I tried the naked-with-an-apron thing once, but I just looked ridiculous).

Anyway, it all turned out to be pointless, since once the dogs figured out I was fixing food, they all came to investigate, and it was kind of disturbing trying to fix supper with a giant black lab licking my leg, and then I got cold because of the air conditioning, and besides, with the dogs harassing me, the hard-working and exhausted Jess actually went to sleep, so I just put my clothes back on. All in all, it was disappointing and disturbing on multiple levels.

The meatloaf was awesome though.

Being a conscientious and thoughtful house-husband is no easy thing.

P.S. Good luck getting that visual of me cooking in a thong out of your head. You know you pictured it. You’re welcome!