I propose a cultural shift backward
Matt has a whole week off next week. A whole week. He gets it because he works in the field of education which likes to give lots of vacation time, and because he HAS to use this week by the end of the fiscal year. Along with a week of vacation, he also gets a week full of my wrath.
When I asked him the other night what he plans to do his response was “well, I’m hoping to get together with Brian to go climbing, I’m going to go watch that new M. Night Shama-lama-ding-dong movie with Adam, and I’d like to reorganize the basement.”
Perhaps your face is not tomato red right now, but mine is just in recounting this tale. Oh to have a week of vacation spent at home filled with recreational activities and things like ORGANIZING THE BASEMENT! Hmm… what would I do on a week off? I’ll tell you what I’d do. The KGB of female responsibility would breathe fire down my neck until I completed a task list longer than a Tolstoy novel. The windows need to be washed, and I really need to scrub the bathroom and kitchen tiles. The Tupperware that has been smashed into a cupboard for the entire 6 months we’ve lived here could really be sorted. Maybe that dentist visit that I haven’t gotten around to in two years. My car needs to go back to the shop, his car needs to be sold. We could sign up for that pet insurance, a little too late. My contacts are old, I’ve got thank-you notes to write, meanwhile we’re running out of cat food.
Why is it that women are always in tune with the stuff around them that just needs to get done. It weighs on us by day and keeps us up at night (ok, not me… I sleep like a log at night). Even when we’re surrounded by perfectly capable men we wind up being household organizers by default. Even if we’re unorganized and forgetful. And from what I read, it sounds like it even gets worse when kids join the mix. Lord help us all.
The major injury we incurred from Feminism in the sixties was the lie perpetrated by our mothers that women could do everything, do it well, and balance it all even better.
I can’t, I don’t want to. Furthermore, I want to hitch a ride back to medieval times when women were carried around on chairs and fed grapes by hot men in chainmail. VIVA L’AMOUR COURTOIS!
June 12th, 2008 at 5:32 am
chivalry is dead…and women killed it…
June 12th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
Well amen sister! I think it is in the genes though – or the dna or sometihng like that. Their minds work differnelty than ours – and the biggest problem is, we just care about that crap more than they do – if we try to “punish” them by letting it all slide, we just punish ourselves, and unfortunately they all know this
Darn it.
A whole week off with nothing to do sounds dreamy…Hmmm…maybe Matt can tackle my basement too…
June 12th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Dub, there’s a reason I broke up with you.
md, Matt can serve us wine and bus our dishes when you come over on Monday. Have I mentioned how excited I am?
June 20th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
[...] to NJ for the weekend. Matt actually left yesterday since he had the week off, which I believe I already told you my feelings about. This afternoon, I’ll hop the train at South Station and wind up in Trenton around midnight [...]