Housework

Amanda’s written an interesting post on the nagging differential of housework, following up on posts written by LeMew and Ezra, who were responding to a previous post of Amanda’s, as well as this one from Belle.

Neither Mr. Shakes nor I will ever be described as a neatnik. Recently, one of our friends called about coming over, and I said, “Yeah—sure, come on over. The house is even reasonably neat!” And he replied, “Really?”

Sigh.

Mr. Shakes is the better cleaner. He does way more housework than I do, for which I am eternally grateful, though I’m willing to do the gross tasks, like cleaning the toilet and scrubbing the bathroom floors and scouring away globs of toothpaste that he couldn’t be bothered to rinse before it hardened. And dead mouse clean-up. Mostly, though, our division of labor comes down to who can do something better or more easily. For him, lugging the vacuum up and down the stairs isn’t a big deal; for me, it is. If we want to have a tasty dinner, better that I do the cooking. He can make a mean burger on the grill and delicious PB&Js, but anything and everything else is better left to me. Including putting together the grocery list, lest we end up with a refrigerator full of nothing but sausage and tomatoes.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some laundry to do…