Today's topic for married couples is: men and women are different.
This fact was brought to my attention in a most alarming way recently when I moved back home after a 10-month absence. For nearly one year I lived on my own in Southern California while being a "nanny-granny" to our baby granddaughter. Daughter #1, Gracie's mommy and a fourth-grade teacher, lives with her hubby in Long Beach, and my spouse and I took a 10-month interval out of our lives so I could lend them a hand by watching Gracie.
During this absence from my home my spouse had the complete run of the place. Now that's not to say there weren't visits. In April I came home for a week during our daughter's spring break, except that didn't actually count because I had a busted up knee and a sinus infection; I was oblivious to everything. I was home for two weeks in December, except that didn't count either because - Hello?? It was Christmas for Pete's sake and I was wrapping gifts, orchestrating a bazillion major holiday meals, baking cookies, planning a christening for baby Gracie and then un-decorating the whole she-bang before heading back to Long Beach.
In November I was home for a week at Thanksgiving, except - OK, you have probably already guessed that that time didn't count either because I was busy Christmas shopping and decorating the house for the holidays. In short, the precise condition of my house passed over my head unnoticed.
Not so with my permanent return home a short time ago. And may I just interject here that I am getting a sense of what all this anti-same-sex marriage hoopla is all about. It is nothing less than a grand conspiracy by men who, as we all know, are not the greatest housekeepers. Men are in fact born with a "Doomsday gene" and will stop at nothing to keep the available woman population at a peak. I mean, let's face it: if all the women (better housekeepers) got married to each other, the resulting woman shortage would relegate males to a colorless existence without ever having known the joy of "bric-a-brac." In fact, while "bric-a-brac" isn't even a traditional part of the male vocabulary, they instinctively know it is vital to their continued survival.
Yes, I know this sounds sexist, but after 10 months without that "woman's touch," so to speak, my house had become alien territory. Now to give my husband his due, outside the plants looked great and inside the floors were swept and the dust had been removed from tabletops. But here is where the paths between the male and female species widens and separates.
First, men could live quite happily without the bothersome existence of closets and drawers. And I'll go even further out on a limb and suggest that dishwashers and trashcans could pretty much go extinct, too. Yep, simply set up a series of sawhorses in strategic locations around the house with some 2 x 6s propped on top of them where guys could strew about their accoutrements to guy life: socks, razor, underwear, golf magazines, remote controls, car keys, paper plates, coffee mug, bar of soap and a towel.
When I stepped into my kitchen after months of living away, my first reaction was that I had entered a Third World country. There on the backs of the kitchen chairs hung several clean (I think) dish towels. Mind you, the drawer that was supposed to contain said dishtowels was a mere few feet away. Why, then, this draping of toswels over the chair backs? "They're handy there," was my spouse's response when I asked him what the heck he was thinking by draping laundry all over the kitchen.
My husband bragged that he ran the dishwasher only once the whole 10 months I was gone. OK, I believed that statement to be an extreme exaggeration until I came across a paper plate that looked like it had been home to at least half a dozen peanut butter sandwiches and frozen pizzas. This illustrates the presence of what I refer to in highly technical terms as "the guy evolution theory." What primitive man could eat off the floor of his cave, modern man can eat straight off his driveway without ever experiencing the ill effects of a single contaminate to his system. Men have digestive systems that make the New York City sewer system seem downright fragile. Personally, my system is much more sophisticated; my tummy throws tantrums if I consume anything that has surpassed its expiration date by more than 60 nano-seconds.
All this, however, was only prepping me for the final assault: the refrigerator. There, still in their original containers, were the leftovers from Christmas. Six months old and counting, my bread pudding was right where I'd left it - not so much a dessert any longer but more of a, well ... gelatinous science experiment gone horribly wrong. Produce that had either fossilized or broken down into vegetative slop resided in the crisper, primordial ooze so nasty that even now I tremble when recalling it. Guys will never throw away leftovers. And OK, this was probably justified payback from the time I jumped all over my spouse for consuming the small block of cheese I'd been saving to grate over the top of some broccoli back in, hmmmm ... 1982.
So it was that I arrived home with a load of boxes to unpack and a house that already seemed filled to capacity with guy-like bits and pieces. It was like moving into a new home and the previous occupants forgot to take their stuff. But no worries - I'll have this house re-feminized in no time. Now - if I can just rid the place of that faint aroma of Cheese Doodles.
Gale Hammond is a writer and freelance photographer who has lived in Morgan Hill 24 years. Reach her at
GaleHammond@aol.com.
Gale Hammond Gale Hammond is a writer and freelance photographer who has lived in Morgan Hill 24 years. Reach her at GaleHammond@aol.com.
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