I’m a fairly clean person. And, although I pride myself on squeaky clean bits’n pieces, it is not of a hygienic nature that I am speaking today.
I’m a bit “Type A” when it comes to keeping my house neat and tidy. I’m not so much concerned with the nooks and crannies as I am making sure that at first glance, things look put in their place. And, as I’m sure you’re already aware, I have a 7 year-old daughter and a 3 year-old son who, I feel, have been placed here as cohorts to some super-spy conglomerate who’s sole mission is to determine the point in time at which the mixture of teensy lego pieces stuck to the bottoms of my socks, Barbie cars placed throughout the house in precarious ankle-breaking positions and Pop Tart edges glued to the remote control will cause me to spontaneously implode (or explode, obviously whichever is more dramatic.) To simplify it: my kids are trying various methods to drive me cuckoo. And they’re getting close.
That all being said, there have been places in my house that have been grossly neglected. If it can be shut behind a door it has most likely been thrown to the wayside until I am ready to fully deal with the disorder. I have had to come to terms with the fact that my “super-spy” children take up 23 1/2 of my 24 allotted hours on a daily basis, and therefore, some things have to be pushed to the back burner. And I was 100% certain that Jer supported me in this belief.
Apparently, I was wrong.
Have you ever sent your husband to Costco for milk and contact solution and he comes home with milk, eye drops (hey…he thought you meant eye drops) and a set of 15 plastic organizational shoeboxes? Well, I have.
Jer decided he simply had to “do something” about the pantry. He couldn’t stand the mishmash of Kellogg’s cereal boxes and antacid tablets. And I will admit, the pantry is a wasteland. It’s four shelves containing anything from cookbooks to cough syrup to Swiss Cake Rolls (these being a problem entirely unto themselves, but I won’t get into that.) And, I kind of agree with Jer that it’s a hot mess. But. As I mentioned before, I’m a busy lady. And as far as Jer having a huge opinion on the matter, the dude has zero credibility in the “clean and orderly” department. His monstrosity, also known as the garage, has a reputation for swallowing household items and could qualify as a front runner for any episode of “How Clean Is Your House?”. The dude really has no room to preach.
So, basically, here’s my “disorderly” husband attempting to school me on previously unrealized organizational opportunities. In my kitchen. My ‘hood.
Jer spent approximately 3 hours moving various sundries and dry goods into plastic shoeboxes, throwing an occasional smirk my way. There was groaning and tsking and verbal disdain. There was sweating and cursing and a whole lot of flying cardboard.
It was painful. And oddly, kind of sexy.
And, when it was all said and done, as if to pour salt in my already festering wound, Jer brought me into the kitchen for a formal tour of my new pantry.
“And this and this go here…blah…blah…blah…pfft…pfft…pfft.” I managed to tune out most of what he said until I heard the following statement.
“Do you think you can keep it like this?”
Oh no he di int!
But, yes. He did.
“Um, Jer. Are you seriously asking me if I can handle maintaining the pantry?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I am. This took me a lot of time. I don’t want it messed back up.”
People. I could barely look at him with a straight face. I could have began a lengthy explanation of how I clean things daily that get ‘messed back up’ without a backward glance. I could have reminded him that he still hasn’t cleared off his desk which has so many dishes piled up it could double as a restaurant pass-through. I could have gone into numerous pending grievances.
But I didn’t.
I looked at his hardwork, displayed proudly and prominently by macaroni-filled shoeboxes lining the shelving and then I looked at his face, expectantly looking back at me.
And I answered, “Sure, babe. I’ll do my best.”
There’s still empty shoeboxes left, waiting to organize some other part of my home. I noticed Jer eyeing my makeup drawer today. This could get ugly, folks.
Mindy
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Brandy
oh. my. goodness. i laughed so hard reading this! girl, you have got a way with words
and austin “attempts” to “fix” my housecleaning “failures” too (yeah….that’s alot of quotation marks, but if i don’t use them, it’s no longer funny in my world and i start to see smoke coming out of my ears!). usually though….HE’S the one who ends up messing things back up and i just sit back and smirk. healthy for our relationship??? probably not….but if affords me a giggle from time to time and THAT, my friend, is what keeps me sane!
Hey…who defines “healthy relationships” anyway? I’m all for a good smirk…at anyone’s expense, even my own.
Mindy
Oh my goodness. If it weren’t such a sweet thing to do, you’d have to clobber him. Isn’t it funny how the messes created by others in our house are SO much more obviously irritating than our own?
Yes, I definitely chose to swallow any sarcastic retort given the cleanliness before me. It was too beautiful of a moment to ruin.
Mindy
There’s a difference between “clean” and “tidy.” I’ve been meaning to write that up, you may have inspired me.
THAT BEING SAID…
Jer is lucky you didn’t clock him.
Himself is very good about not nagging me when things slip, because he is a major cause of the slippage.
Because the reality is, when *I* get busy and distracted is when the house falls apart.
There is, I believe, a correlation.
I’d say “clean the garage” to get even with him, but 1) Umm…no, and 2)it totally wouldn’t communicate what you wanted it to.
But maybe he’d be afraid of what you were going to throw out.
There’s a HUGE difference between “clean” and “tidy”. There’s also a HUGE difference between “sanity” and “insanity.”
Mindy
I’m surprised he’s still breathing! Hubby knows that he can pick stuff up and clean, but heaven help him if he moves something I need sometime in the future. Our garage has swallowed a good many items he has placed “out of the way”.
I readily admit Jer’s facing a double-edged sword in the ‘cleaning’ department. But…I could do without the active lecturing.
Mindy
Hmmm….sounds like a convo here at my house recently. Tell you what I’ll whop your hubby upside the head if you whop mine!
You got it.
Mindy
This reminds me of the time right before book club when Matt and Bryan asked me why I didn’t clean our house like that more often. Um, maybe because those two still live here!
Wow, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to maintain my cool like that. One of the reasons I have never wanted kids is that even when the husband swears up and down that they will “help,” I have rarely seen that happen without a lot of cajoling. And then they want rewarded for doing one. little. thing.
It’s like having another child. I’m fine with my one child = my fiance.
I just laughed and laughed. Men do 1 little chore and they act like they just perfomed brain surgery.
Oh, Mindy. I agree with Lori. Jer is seriously lucky you didn’t clock him. And I think you would have been within bounds to do it. I like Jer based on what you’ve written about him, I’ll just say this was a momentary (3-hour) lapse in judgment probably motivated by testosterone poisoning. Even if you didn’t clock him physically, he could have used a verbal lashing. Like Dr. Phil says, you’ve got to teach people how to treat you. But then again, you just got him to do a big ol’ 3-hour chore for you. In some sense, this could be kind of a brilliant strategy on your part. Pull a Tom Sawyer on him and tell him what a great job he did and how you just can’t figure out how he did it. Feign ignorance. Claim to feel overwhelmed by it all. Play to his manly white knightlyness. Who knows? You might get him to keep it all organized for you on a regular basis. Then you can put up your feet, watch soap operas and eat bon bons. Great plan!
Yeah I think that would have bugged me too! Sometimes I’ll be late getting home and arrive to find my husband has completely cleaned the place. I LOVE it! I should be late getting home more often.
I’m so impressed with you – I think in that situation I would have started taking him on a tour of his parts of the house!
Being that food gets eaten and new food sans tupperware tend to gather. I kinda doubt he will get his wish.
Genius how you got him to clean that up for you.
hahahahhaaha! omg! i cannot stop laughing! my husband does the same kind of things!
how ever did you keep a straight face????
that is too precious.
what kind of storage boxes did he get????
Oh thank goodness my hubby would neva!! I would have been standing there the whole time and then eventually shove him out of the way to do it myself!
That would have thrown me over the edge, touching and messing with my organized chaos!
Good for you for not clobbering him!