Can anyone tell me why certain household members feel it necessary to leave an empty plate in the refrigerator? I don't know if this happens in other homes but in mine it's a regular occurrence. Certain teenage girls take food items from plates but leave the empty plate there, or empty a container of lychees and leave only the juice. Or take the last piece of chocolate and leave the empty wrapper. I think I'm going to start piling these things up and putting them on her bed so she has to move them to get into it. I've tried that with her pile of clean washing but she usually just throws it on the floor and leaves it there until I tell her to clean her room and then brings it all back upstairs, still clean, and puts it in the laundry to be washed again!
I often wonder how housewives of the fifties managed to keep their homes so clean. They didn't have day care then and had to clean around a houseful of children and a husband who needed his dinner at 6pm. I did an internet search to help me with clues but couldn't find any. Yesterday I got up and vacuumed, washed, and generally tidied up and then Henry woke up and destroyed it all again. Did the housewives of the fifties drink lots of vodka to numb them to the pain? I know that in the very early days children were tethered to a pole to keep them safe and stop them from doing themselves a terrible injury in those homes that had open fire places for cooking etc and maybe that's the solution that needs to be employed in the naughties again. We don't have an open fire place but I'm damned if I can find time to fold the washing let alone put it away with Henry running around and pulling things down as I put them up . Maybe the kids were threatened to within an inch of their lives if they dared mess things up. Maybe husbands were threatened with divorce if they dared not put their undies in the washing basket instead of on the floor.
Above is a picture of my darling son after he'd just yanked all the folded clean washing off the floor to get to his sisters spongebob squarepants bag. I'll do my best to train him to be a good husband but so far I don't think my chances are great. He likes things better when they're spread around all over the place.
The dining table is another story. Why is that EVERYONE has to throw everything on the dining table? Why can't they just put it away where it's supposed to go? After all it is usually only a few steps from the dining table but that would mean they may have to move more than necessary and actually open a drawer or cupboard and that would expend energy they require for watching TV. Maybe it's a ploy so that we can't sit at the dinner table to eat and so dinner will have to be eaten in front of the Simpsons. Maybe sitting at the dinner table to eat would require of them conversational skills that they would rather not possess. Maybe they're scared I will ask them to be more considerate and start cleaning up after themselves. Maybe I should just throw the TV away.
Now that I have that whine off my chest I will change the subject. Henry and I just took a walk with Maya to the bus stop. We waved her off and then walked past the local butcher shop. The lads are feeling the Christmas spirit already and have placed a lifesize dancing Santa outside the shop. Of course it's stinking hot in this country at Christmas but we still adopt the Santa of the cold climes dressed up in a red velvet suit with a nice big bushy white beard and big black boots. I felt like I was going to melt just looking at him. Anyway Henry wasn't quite sure what to make of him at first. He stared very intently for some time before looking at me for reassurance. Once he realised it was ok he started to do a little dance in the pram. Very cute. It will be fun this christmas watching Henry get excited by the Christmas lights and the tearing off of paper from his presents (if he's lucky enough to get any). Christmas is only fun when there are kids to share it with. With any luck the weather will be cool enough to enjoy it. I think we're planning on celebrating it with my brother and his girlfriend at their house. That means that she will be doing all the preparations because the men in our family like to have the parties but don't like to do the work. They enjoy the fruits of the women's labour and then drink beer and play cricket in the backyard and then have a sleep while the women clean up after lunch.
Well I sit here waiting for John to arrive so I can rewrite his job application. I can't tell you how excited I am about that. Another example of men who need women to do their bidding. Maybe I'll write to Germaine Greer for some helpful advice.
Talk soon.
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