A Woman's Work Is Never Done

I recently painted the master bedroom, which wasn’t an easy task considering I had to move a monstrous chest of drawers, a king size bed, a wardrobe that weighs more than my Tundra, and other assorted pieces of furniture, then tape the baseboards and trim before I could even begin painting. I also painted the adjoining bathroom. And while I was doing all this labor, did my darling hubby even once offer to help? Well, not unless you consider it help for him to wander by every now and then, with his pipe clenched between his teeth, poke his head in the doorway, and mumble, “Looking good, honey.” Then again, I guess you could qualify that as help of a sort, rather like when fans cheer on an athlete from the sidelines; it counts as moral support. 

Tina Jenkins, Google Images 2014

Chet’s contribution to this project, though, was the same as his contribution a few years back when I painted the entire outside of the house, a chore that took me three weeks to complete, because at the time I was teaching on campus Monday through Thursday and could devote only three days each week to painting, and that was between doing all the other chores, for instance, mowing the lawn, shopping for groceries, cooking the meals, doing the laundry, and cleaning the house. 

Taking Care of a Home Is a Full time Job

Raquel English, Google Images 2014

The reality, of course, is that I do all of the manual-labor labor around our home, and for the jobs I can’t do, I hire someone, for instance, to do anything related to plumbing or electricity. I most certainly cannot rely upon my hubby because, while Chet may very well be the most brilliant man I’ve ever known (He does have a Ph.D. and a head filled with trivia, after all), he is completely and totally helpless when it comes to anything manual. And that reminds me; he once had the audacity to tell me that one of the reasons he had pursued a higher education was so he wouldn’t have to do any manual labor. My response was, “Well, in that case I think you needed to find a higher paying profession than teaching.” Then again, he married me, and I work for free, so maybe he had a point.

Questions to Ask a Prospective Husband

Marriage to Chet has taught me an invaluable lesson that I would like to share with other women, which is that not all men are born with a hammer in one hand and a Phillip’s screwdriver in the other. In fact, some men don’t even know which end of a hammer to use, and they wouldn’t know a Phillip’s screwdriver if it walked up and bit them in the behind. 

Smartgreenbuild.com, Google Images 2014

Therefore, I believe that before a woman says “yes” to any marriage proposal, she needs to ask her suitor the following questions:  

•  Do you own a socket set?
• Do you own a Phillips head screwdriver?
• Do you own a hammer?
• Do you own a drill, electric or otherwise?
• If you answered in the affirmative to the first four questions, do you know how to use the aforementioned items without causing yourself—or anyone else—serious bodily harm?
• Can you change the oil in a vehicle?
• Can you change a flat tire on a vehicle?
• Do you even know where the jack and spare tire are located in a vehicle?
• Can you crank a lawnmower?
• Can you maneuver a running lawnmower around a yard without pushing through the flowerbeds?
• Can you tell the difference between a paintbrush and a hairbrush?
• If you answered yes to the previous question, can you dip a paintbrush into a can of paint and then apply paint to a wall without dribbling paint all over the floor or splattering it on adjoining walls or the furniture?
• Do you know how to repair a malfunctioning electric light?
• Do you know to turn off the main breaker when you tinker with the wiring on anything electrical?
• Do you know how to replace a leaky faucet on a sink?
• Do you know to turn off the water under a sink before attempting to replace a leaky faucet?
• Do you even know where the shutoff value is located under a sink?
• 18. Do you know that toilets are not meant to flush entire roles of paper towels into the sewer system?
• Have you ever attempted to flush an entire roll of paper towels into a sewer system?
• Are you allergic to physical labor of any kind?

There are other questions I would suggest one ask, but it’s now almost midnight here in in the murky, alligator-infested swamps of south Louisiana, and tomorrow I need to mow the lawn. I also have to drive to Home Depot, purchase 20 bags of mulch, bring them home, unload the bags from my truck, then scatter the mulch in flowerbeds lining the front of the house, but only after I weed the beds. Oh, well, as the old saying goes, “A woman’s work is never done,” especially when she’s married to Chet.