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When a Man Thinks

Oh, my goodness. Things are fixing to get interesting.

My friend here gave me the best advice ever. She told me that when her husband retired, they divided up all the chores. She said she had watched and learned from her mom. When her dad retired, suddenly he was a man of leisure but her mom had all her chores still. Nothing changed for her. She still did all the laundry, all the cooking, all the cleaning, all the meal planning, all the housekeeping.

Around here, about the only thing that’s changed is that our meals. I fix a big breakfast and then we have another meal about 2 or 3. If Vince wants something else at 6 or 6:30 . . I will say “There’s all kinds of stuff in the fridge. Fix what you want.”

The funny thing to me is that sometimes, if there are no clean glasses or forks, he will say “Are you going to unpack the dishwasher.” I’ll say “Not right now but you can!” His response “I don’t know where things go!” I don’t say it but what about the plates, bowls, silverware and glasses? That’s 90% of what’s in the dishwasher. You put that away and I’ll do the spatula!

I don’t think I should have to say “The weeds are so tall I can no longer see Rita when we’re out for her to go to the bathroom so if you get a chance, can you cut the grass?” But sometimes, I do have to say that!

Our front entrance off the highway was so overgrown that the place looks abandoned. Vince said “That’s good. No one will come back here because they think it’s abandoned!”

Yesterday I said “Tomorrow, before it gets hot, will you please cut the entrance?” It isn’t like we don’t have a specialized lawn mower for every application! Also, a couple of years ago he and Chad went rock hunting. Vince took a 5 gallon bucket of rocks and dumped them in the yard. Why? I asked him then . . please pick those up before weeds grow up around them. Two summers later, the weeds are 2′ tall where those rocks are so yesterday I said “You remember that I asked you not to leave those rocks there. Will you please pick them up and cut that grass?”

This morning he did both things I’d asked him to do but when I went outside, he spoke great words of wisdom. He had been thinking. “I’ve been thinking and from now on, you can ask me to do two things per day but if those things take over two hours, it has to be broken up over two days!” At first, I thought . . Great! That’s 60 things we can get done in a month!

Then, as I was walking inside, I thought . . what’s good for the goose is good for the gander (or vice versa). So, I’m wondering what he will choose for me to do: Unpack the dishwasher, buy groceries, cook breakfast or lunch, laundry, vacuum, dust?

By Vince’s terms, cleaning windows is about a three day job. So, he could get breakfast or lunch, and one hour’s worth of window cleaning. That would be it for the day! Lunch can take no longer than an hour and since the dishes all have to be cleaned, that is either my 2nd thing for the day or lunch combined with cleaning can take no longer than an hour. I guess we’ll never have smoked brisket again because by the time I trim it, season it, check on it while it’s smoking, wrap it in butcher paper, then slice it, put it in vacuum seal bags and freeze it . . that’s about 20 hours! Of course, he cleans out the smoker and gets it ready for me to use and that takes about 15 minutes so that would be one of his things for the day.

I believe he may come to decide this new plan wasn’t a good idea! But, I will love this new plan.

Breakfast took 35 minutes, 10 minute to clean up, 5 minutes to unpack the dishwasher, 10 minutes to gather up Vince’s dirty outside clothes (some are out on the back porch, some on the front porch, some in the dirty clothes basket) and get laundry done. Half my allotted work time is done for the day!

I told Vince . . this is going to work great.

Vince: You think this is going to work for you too?
Me: Why not?
Vince: Do you think it takes you over an hour to cook a meal?
Me: Sometimes!
Vince: You always figure out an angle to make things work for your benefit!
Me: Why shouldn’t the same rules apply to me that apply to you?
Vince: I get credit for having worked the 20+ years we’ve been married.

I hope he can apply that credit to restaurants and maid service!  🙂

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Oh, I can’t wait to see how this plays out! LOL!! I swear, it sounds like something my husband would say…. Enjoy your break!

  2. Oh lord tell me about it. I’m Still working 15 hour days and he lays around reading his iPad or napping. I gave him a list the other day after a we will split chores conv. You’d thought I’d asked him to chop off a leg But I don’t know how to do whatever. I figured that was fair because he was on the road for 30 yes and when he came the magical cleaning fairy (me) had visited. He is not on a good learning curve though. Tomorrow he make the bed all by himself.

  3. Does he think you didn’t work during those 20 years you’ve been married? Men have such funny ideas!

  5. Ah, but there’s a backlog of chores Vince hasn’t done when asked, like the rocks & cutting the entrance. His 2 chores/2 hours edict can’t take effect until he gets caught up. After all, you didn’t wait 2 years to do laundry or cook meals or clean.

  6. Judy, perhaps it would help if you made a visible-to-Vince list of how long it takes you to do things. Then he can see where he can be useful on his own – like 5 minutes to unpack the dishwasher. I think seeing the smoked brisket list would be eye-opening for him. You’d start by listing how long it takes Vince to clean and ready the smoker, and then list out your work steps minutes by minute…

  9. We have been fighting this battle for several years. Basically I gave up. the joking statements like like Vince’s start to feel less like a joke after while

  10. When men retire they seem to think they can do just whatever they feel like doing for the rest of their lives. When a work-outside-the-home woman retires her husband figures she has more time to do more of the work around the home. And if that woman has been a non-paid homemaker men don’t think that counts as working at all. I’ll be waiting to see how long Vince sticks to his idea of division of labor. He’s going to have to work pretty hard to outfox you in this retirement game. LOL

  11. OMG… are you sure Vince is not of German descent ? That is something my husband would come up with (after talking to his mother of course and getting her ok)…
    We just bought a new 5th wheel (a 39ft 11 inches by Talon) and he is so particular about what goes into it (of course after talking to his mother about space.. The problem is they have never had a 5th wheel). I made sure all the space was there so he could see that in the small trailer we had (a 19 ft Pioneer by Fleetwood) that there was just no room for people after the stuff was in it.
    Sure sounds like something my husband would come up with and say out loud…. Hahahahahha

  12. Lots of funny stuff here, but the one that caught my eye was the “dirty outside clothes” by the doors. I pictured Vince undressing before entering the house! That’s one way to cut down the dirt.

  13. Oh, my gosh! I can’t believe he said that! Doesn’t he realize that’s the red flag in front of the bull? What were you doing? Playing golf? Watching soap operas? How did you restrain yourself from violence? Stick with the plan for you, too!

  14. You might tell Vince those who retire and stay busy tend to live longer. If he chooses to be idle most of the day you should ask him what he prefers at his funeral. I established a long time ago….”I’m not your maid nor your mother.”

  15. If he only knew or could figure out what you have done for him in the last 20+ years that he would have had to pay for if he was not married to you!

  16. You guys make me laugh so much, it only makes sense to me that the same rules apply to you both. I wonder where he got the 2 hr idea from.

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