I hate housework. I thoroughly hate it.
I’m not a male chauvinist. If multiple people live in a home, I believe they should share the housework, regardless of whether they are of the same or different sexes. Be that as it may, it doesn’t matter. I’m single. I live alone. So, even if I did believe such an outdated, misogynistic concept as housework being women’s work, there still isn’t a live-in woman to whom I could try to slough off the chores.
Besides, not being a raving male chauvinist, I’d feel excruciatingly guilty trying to convince a wife or girlfriend that housework is women’s work. I’d still try. (I think I mentioned that I hate housework.) But I’d feel guilty about it.
Housework Fail
To make matters worse, what little housework I do, I invariably do abysmally. That’s not by intent. Rather, it’s inability or, possibly, because the universe hates me.
For example, ironed clothes end up more disheveled than when I started. For that reason, I usually buy “permanent-pressed” clothes made from the most artificial of polyesters. In the interest of fashion, NASA approved this material to be left on the moon should anyone go back there. NASA also recommended that moon landings be abandoned after that mercy mission.
I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Despite their alleged permanent wrinkle-freeness, these garments come out of my dryer in a state that would cause prunes to refuse to be seen in the company of such crumpled creatures if prunes were, indeed, sentient. Obviously, this is a figment of my imagination. Sentient prunes wouldn’t simply refuse to sit next to my clothes. And they’d die of embarrassment if forced to sit next to my “stay-pressed” shirts and pants after I pull them out of the dryer.
New Sheets
I bought new sheets a little while back because all of my sheets were past their primes. The newest of my old sheets were woven by ancient Israelites from fibers extracted from reeds that Moses personally harvested from the banks of the Nile just before he fled from the Pharaoh.
Even older than that, an unknown member of the first protohuman species to evolve from our ape ancestors discovered the oldest of my old sheets under a bush. Nobody knows how those sheets came to exist.
I hate to give up bedding with such sentimental, archaeological, historical, and religious value. Nevertheless, they became threadbare. It was time to replace it.
Not having bought bedding in a long time, I didn’t know what to look for. The most prominent marketing descriptor was something mysteriously called thread count. I had no idea what that meant. I felt pity for the near-slaves in third-world countries whom I felt certain were forced to sit in cold, dimly lit rooms counting the threads in every sheet, but I assumed that a higher number was better.
Then I looked at another number—the price. Using that number, I adjusted my evaluation criteria somewhat.
In the end, my decision came down to another listed feature. I narrowed it down to two brands. One said “wrinkle resistant.” The other said “no iron.” I chose “no iron.”
Wrinkle Resistant vs. No Iron
I figured that “wrinkle resistant” was a far weaker claim than a guarantee that I would never have to iron the sheets. That was a mistake. It turns out that the manufacturer wasn’t promising that the sheets would never hold a wrinkle. It simply gave me permission to not iron them if I didn’t mind sleeping on and under severely crumpled sheets. (Foreshadowing two paragraphs hence: If the alternative is ironing, I don’t mind rumpled sheets. At all.)
Every time I pull the new sheets out of the dryer I hear prunes in my fridge praying to never become sentient.
Nevertheless, I still don’t iron sheets. I may change that policy if I come to think that I have a chance of ever getting lucky again, but for now I’m single and I sleep alone. So, I simply live with horribly wrinkled sheets. What the hell do I care? I’m sleeping most of the time when I’m in the sheets’ presence.
Wrinkle Care
By the way, my dryer has a “Wrinkle Care” button. (See also: Hand Wash.) When I push it, a light on the front panel comes on. I think that’s all the button does. Obviously, I’m joking. When I push the button, my dryer creates a nourishing environment that allows wrinkles to form, flourish, and grow to their full potential.
Wrinkling isn’t the only problem with the new sheets. With my old sheets, every once in a while, they’d wind themselves up into a ball in the dryer, with the result being that whatever was in the interior of the ball remained wet and wrinkled no matter how long it stayed in the warm, tumbling dryer.
The weird thing is, this didn’t happen every time—only once in a while. There didn’t seem to be any pattern or trigger that determined whether my old sheets would ball up in my dryer. My working theory is that they had their own horoscopes that directed their destinies.
Things are different with my new sheets. Now, every time I dry them I have to open the dryer frequently to free whatever is trapped inside the tightly compressed sheet-ball that forms there.
Sundry Housework Chores
Doing laundry isn’t the only household task that challenges me. I hate vacuuming. To eliminate that chore, I bought two Roomba vacuum robots, one for upstairs and one for downstairs. The one downstairs works fine. The one upstairs, on the other hand, loves nothing more than to beach itself on the base of a floor lamp and stay there until I come to free it.
I have a theory about this too. The upstairs Roomba sleeps in the same room as I do. I think stranding itself is a protest against that arrangement. I snore.
Roombas don’t do stairs. As a result, sufficient dust accumulated on my staircase that I can now fashion a really cool slide out of it.
Roombas don’t do furniture either. I don’t dust often, but when I can no longer remember what pieces of furniture lie under the filth accumulated on them, I reluctantly clear away the dust.
Nevertheless, Dust Persisted
Why is it that, no matter how diligently I perform this activity, after I’ve thrown away the duster and hauled the dozen or so large cartons full of dust to my condo’s garbage room, there’s always a coating of dust remaining on at least one swath of each piece of furniture? Of the possible explanations listed above, the one that seems to fit here is “the universe hates me.” Or maybe it’s the incompetence thing.
And I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t wipe down my kitchen countertops as often as I should. Nevertheless, I’m convinced that the following shouldn’t be happening when I do: The sponge that was bright, clean, and one of a selection of neon colors when I started always resembles bitumen from the Alberta oil sands when I’m done.
You can’t tell me that’s a natural occurrence. That’s not quite true. You can tell me that, but I won’t believe you.
Hired Hands
I know what some of you are thinking (in the exceptionally unlikely event anyone finds this article). “Why doesn’t he hire someone to come in and clean for him?”
There are four reasons for this; two weak reasons and two strong reasons.
- One of the weak reasons is I’m not fabulously wealthy and I like to travel. When the current pandemic is over, I want to start doing that again in a big way. This is only a weak reason because, while I’m not fabulously wealthy, I am financially comfortable. My spending and income are currently in roughly the balance I want. As long as I don’t break a longevity record, I don’t expect to die penniless. But, unless I’m already dead when you read this, my heir won’t inherit as much as I have now. (Sorry about that.) If I hire a cleaner to come in regularly I might have to cut back a little on my travel expenditures, but, as a percentage of total travel spending, not much.
- The other weak reason is that we are currently in the middle of a pandemic. This is a weak reason because I could wear a mask and stay away from the cleaner while she or he is working. And, the pandemic will end one day. I hope.
- A far stronger reason is I have issues. I’m far too embarrassed to let someone come in and see the mess I call home, even if it’s to make it less messy.
- Finally, I don’t want anyone touching my stuff. Period. (Did I mention I have issues?)
