Heavy thunderstorm blew through here last night. Nothing like what they've been dealing with out in the Midwest and by comparison hardly worth mentioning. But it blew down power lines, knocked over some trees. Lightning strike split a giant old maple around the corner. Not a lot of fun to sit through...I'm told.
I wasn't home. Neither was the blonde. The young men Mannion were mannioning the fort by themselves, which they're perfectly capable of doing. When the storm stopped being fun to watch out the window and started to get a little scary, they retreated to the basement with their flashlights, some blankets, some books, some snacks, the game of LIFE, and the portable CD player and they stayed down there until the storm passed, listening to Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures
. When they came up they surveyed the house for damage, found none, then went outside to help our elderly neighbor clear the large branches that had fallen on her yard, just missing her house, It's not for nothing they were both Cub Scouts.
As I said, nothing terrible and almost not worth writing about. But when the blonde got home from work she arrived to a house without power. Again, no big deal. They had flashlights, a battery powered lantern, the CD player, take-out for dinner, and a lot of fun. I called home to check on them and was almost jealous to hear what was going on there.
Now here's the thing.
The blonde has a curious defect in her hearing. She cannot hear any advice I give. Absolutely deaf to it. I could tell her I had the inside dope on a horse race and she should put all her loot on Sonny Boy to win just before she went to the window and she'd bet two bucks on the favorite to show.
I say, "Looks like it's going to rain, blonde. Better take your umbrella." And she hears, "Have a nice day, love of my life, I will be counting the minutes until you get home."
I say, "We're all out of Pepsi. Since you're going grocery shopping this morning would you mind picking up a few six-packs?" And she hears, "Kale! You know what I'm in the mood for? Kale. And radishes. Get lots of extra radishes."
I suspect that this same hearing deficit is what causes her to not hear my jokes.
Anyway, last night when I called home and she was assuring me that everything at Fort Mannion was a-ok, she mentioned that they were reading by the light of the lantern. Now, we actually have two of these lanterns and I reminded her of this fact and added, "I think the other one needs new batteries. I bought some the other day. They're in a Rite-Aid bag on the counter."
I'm not sure what she heard. Probably, "I'm glad you're doing such a wonderful job taking care of our boys, my dearest one. I admire your pluck and fortitude no end." I know for a fact she didn't hear what I said about the batteries because this morning she said to me, "We only had the one lantern last night. We're all out of batteries for the other one."
I tried not to look smug as I lifted the Rite-Aid bag sitting on the counter next to her coffee cup.
By the way, the blonde knows how I feel on this subject but she seems to think it's one
of the things that endear her to me. Which makes me wonder what she's
heard whenever I've complained (mildly) that she doesn't listen to me
sometimes.
My point here is not to try to elicit your sympathy by sharing what I have to put up with around here. I know better. Most of you can guess that if the blonde wanted to she could post her own list of things she has to put up with around here that would be as long as the United States Constitution including all twenty-seven Amendments.
My point here is batteries and the blonde's relationship to them. Which is this:
As far as she knows, there are no batteries in the house until we actually need them and I somehow magically conjure them out of thin air at the critical moment. I understand this sort of magical thinking because as far as I'm know we have elves who come in the middle of the night to fold the laundry. It's just that batteries are something I take care of, the way she makes sure the kitchen is well-stocked with spices. I grew up in a house where there were never any light bulbs or batteries on hand when we needed them and, since I was usually the one who had to hop on his bike and run down to the hardware store to pick them up, I made a vow long ago that when I owned a house of my own we would never want for supplies (or tools, another household necessity the old homestead somehow muddled on without) and so I've made a point of picking up extra batteries and light bulbs whenever I make a trip to the hardware store or to Target.
I consider this a neurosis not a virtue.
At any rate, we had batteries for the lanterns. But this is what I got to wondering. If I hadn't called, and if I had put the batteries away instead of leaving them in plain sight on the counter because I was lazy when I came home from the store that trip, and if she had thought to look for some, would she have found them?
I asked her this morning where I keep all our batteries.
She had to think about it, but she remembered.
She knows where we keep all the light bulbs too, although, again, as far as she knows they deliver themselves to the house. What she doesn't know is which lamps take what watt bulbs and the difference between AAA and AA batteries and what type go in what devices.
Makes me think that if I were ever stranded on a desert island for a year I'd come home to a house in which none of the lamps or portable electronic devices worked. And if she were stranded on a desert island she would return to a house totally devoid of marjoram and with all the furniture re-upholstered with unfolded laundry.
This is not a problem. It's in fact a sign that something is working well here. It's a result of the division of labor. There are things she takes care of and things that I take care of. (And before you jump to any conclusions about traditional gender roles applying, one of the things I take care of is the vacuuming and one of the things she takes care of is the taxes.) But there is a potential downside.
The things one of us takes care of the other begins to take for granted to the point that those things become invisible to the one not taking care of them.
We aren't so traditional (gender-stereotyped) that if one of us suddenly had to run the house on his or her own that one of us would be at a complete loss about one thing or another. The blonde doesn't know where I keep the vacuum bags and the extra filters or how to change either, but she knows where Sears is and she'd figure it all out. I might never make anything using marjoram but I can cook and I've been to the grocery store.
But, to get to my point at last, expand upon the idea of batteries to include most home repair and expand upon marjoram to include most of the housekeeping (which is different from housework, by the way) and you can see that there might be large areas of household management that one or the other of us isn't taking care of and so there are large areas of household management at which, if we had to take them on suddenly, we wouldn't be immediately competent.
I'm guessing that most women under 50 these days, maybe most under 60, will not find themselves in the situation widows and divorcees of my grandmothers' generation, and even women of my mother's generation, found themselves in, unable to cope with paying the bills or dealing with a mechanic or a repairman or buying the right size batteries and installing them into whatever device needed them. But I'll bet there are more than a few. I'm also guessing that there are still plenty of still-youngish men who would find themselves in the situation of suddenly single men of the previous two generations, unable to cook themselves a decent meal, unable to navigate a supermarket, unable to keep up with their laundry and housecleaning, unable to remind themselves to make a doctor's appointment or get their prescriptions refilled, unable if they're still relatively young to deal with the kids' teachers and the pediatrician and soccer practice schedules.
When two people share a household, it's only natural that the work of running it gets divided up. The division of labor doesn't have to be along traditional gender lines, but it often is, even in households where the couple isn't divided that way---most gay couples seem to have one partner who takes on more of the "male" stuff and one who takes on more of the "female" stuff. (Of course all the work should be divided evenly, and that is often not the case when the household includes a male husband and a female wife, but that's another subject.) And this division of labor can lead to a blindness to labor.
The best way to deal with this is to routinely trade off chores and duties. But I think it's also important that both partners in a domestic union setting up house together already know how to do certain things and already know that there are certain things that have to be prepared for and certain things that have to be maintained.
So here's what I'm asking of you: What one piece of practical advice would you give or what skill would you teach to someone setting up housekeeping for the first time, either on their own or as part of a couple?
For example, my advice would obviously be stock up on batteries and light bulbs. But here's a better example of what I mean. When I was about to go off to college a good friend of mine taught me how to fold a shirt. She also wrote out instructions on how to sort clothes for the laundry and what water temperature to set the washing machine for which kinds of clothes and which kinds of stains.
Here's another one. Know where the circuit breaker box is and make sure to learn which circuit breakers control which areas of the house and label them if they aren't already labeled.
Last night when I got home the power was back on in half the house. Downstairs. The blonde and the boys were already asleep and didn't know the power was back on at all. I guessed immediately what the problem was and grabbed a flashlight from the table where they'd been left when everybody went to bed (instead of being stowed away where they belong, hint hint), and headed down to the basement. Sure enough, the breaker for the upstairs bedrooms had tripped. (By the way, I think it's probably not a good thing that both bedrooms are on the same circuit. Any advice?) Easily dealt with. But this morning I thought I'd better ask the blonde if she knew where the box was.
"Of course," she said.
I didn't quiz her on it, but I'm not sure she really does, because I'm not sure she heard me.
I said, "Blonde, old sport, do you know where the fuse box is?"
And she might very well have heard, "Oh my wonderful and most perfect spouse, may I pour you another cup of coffee?"
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