Farmer H is in hot water again. Not boiling hot. Just starting to simmer.
Perhaps you remember that many, many, MANY years ago, in the first year or two of their blessed union, Farmer H and Mrs. Hillbilly Mom had a disagreement. It concerned the soiled clothing of Farmer H. At the time, he was still an hourly worker at his old factory in the city, not a member of the management team at the new factory he and a few colleagues built halfway between the city and Hillmomba.
Farmer H's work clothing consisted of jeans and t-shirts. Cheap jeans, and pocket Ts that he bought white, and died brown, so as not to show the grime. His job has always been in the maintenance department, involving anything from carrying office furniture to and from storage, to rewiring the plant for machines involved in the production of saw blades. He has never been a suit and tie kind of guy.
For the first blissful months of marriage, Farmer H and Mrs. Hillbilly Mom worked like a well-oiled machine. Both arose at 5:00 a.m., to hit the road in different directions for a commute to their very different jobs. Farmer H spent his non-working hours fixing up the $17,000 house, and Mrs. HM spent her non-working hours working (grading papers and planning lessons at home), and completing the household chores.
Yes, that well-oiled machine was chugging right along, until the Saturday morning that Mrs. HM objected to the monkey wrench that Farmer H tossed into the cogs.
"I'm tired of picking up your dirty clothes! Look at this pile! I can hardly walk across the bedroom. If you expect me to do your laundry, you need to put it in the bathroom hamper. There's no reason to have work clothes and dirty underwear scattered across the carpet! I don't see your arm in a cast. You can put your clothes in the hamper, same as I do. I'm not your servant."
As you might imagine, knowing what you know about Farmer H... he objected.
"Fine! I'll do my own laundry!"
Farmer H continued to pile his dirty clothes on the bedroom carpet all week, and scraped them up and took them to the basement to wash them on Sundays. Oh, well. His choice. Less laundry for Mrs. HM.
Since he never apologized, or started putting his dirty laundry in the communal hamper, his life of laundering continued. I did the household laundry and the boys' laundry and my own, while Farmer H washed his own clothing. Which had turned into not as much, because with his new job five years into the marriage, he had a uniform service through work.
Of course I still had a bone to pick with Farmer H over his laundering. Albeit 20 years later.
"When you take your clothes out of the dryer, you need to clean the lint trap. That's only common courtesy. I always clean it, but you leave so much in there that I could make a blanket out of the lint. The dryer will be more efficient if you clean it out."
So, Farmer H started complying with my command. I always check, though, just in case of a relapse. Which happened last weekend. I probably would have let him get away with it, but he annoyed me. He did laundry on a Saturday night after the auction, and then AGAIN on Sunday night! I know that, because I had to rush and take my dry clothing out of the dryer before I was ready to deal with it. Farmer H tosses it haphazardly into the clothes basket, and I often lose a sock.
"I can't believe you're doing laundry again! I heard it from downstairs."
"Yeah. So?"
"Now I've had to rush up here to get my clothes out before you mess them up. I thought you were done on Saturday."
"No. I had to wash my jeans and shirts. And now my underwear."
"Well, you didn't clean out the lint trap, so I had to! And because of that, I'm NOT cleaning it out now when I take my clothes out. You can do that. And do it AFTER you take your clothes out, too!"
"Okay! I don't know why you're so cranky. You're always cranky with me."
Yeah. I am. For absolutely no reason at all...
2 comments:
I did all the laundry, hubby would put his things in the hamper as trained by his mum, and I trained the kids too, which only worked until they were about 12 then things started getting just tossed about their rooms all willy-nilly, so I'd call out when I was about to start that they should bring their clothes for washing. And they did. Mostly. If they didn't, they soon ran out of things and complained, to which I would say, did you put them in the hamper? No? Too bad. At that point I showed each child in turn how the machine worked and put them in charge of their own clothes. At first they didn't think this was fair, but ten I told them they weren't going to be allowed to leave home unless they could do their own laundry, including ironing. My job was a lot easier after that, because they were already taking a turn one day a week to provide dinner.
My boys were easily trained. They took their clothes to the hamper when they got out of the shower. It was just their routine, no nagging necessary. Neither showed any interest in learning how to wash their own clothes, until the summer before they left for college. I'm kind of shocked that The Pony is able to feed himself, even now. I guess I dropped the ball in preparing them for life!
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