These postits are not 100% real. I love my husband, seriously.
I feel the need - a deep, deep need - to help you understand my point of view on two key things.
- Household repairs
- Cleanliness
These two things are always a bone of contention in the modern marriage where income level precludes engaging staff, and are closely related. So I am going to address them in combination.
Men have the gift of singular focus, women have the gift of holistic view. Both are vital. Both have their place.
This is why a man can live in the legendary state that is known as "Bachelor pad" - same sheets on the bed for over a month, fridge full of beer, only food in the house a suger-laden cereal aimed at children ages 3-7. It doesn't matter to you because you are focused on going to work, or playing that video game, or shooting the shit with buddies over a beer. As long as you can achieve what you need to, the state of your surroundings is, at best, a peripheral consideration. There's probably a mother or cleaner who comes in now and again to take care of any food containers, socks or underwear that are approaching a health hazard, so what's the problem, right?
Now, let me explain a woman's point of view.
Our home is our nest.
It is our refuge, our relaxation, our happy place.
To be a happy place, it has to be a pretty place. To be a pretty place, it has to be a clean place and a functioning place.
Take a leaf out of the Bowerbird's book: They build a beautiful home to attract a mate, decorating it with colorful leaves and flowers, even creating a stunning garden around it! And, by bird standards, it's a bloody big house, too.
Therefore, there are two things that we cannot bear: anything that lingers and lingers as an element that doesn't work, and anything that causes a sense of disgust.
Now, don't get me wrong. I delay cleaning tasks just like you do. I hate doing the laudry, I don't always empty or load the dishwasher immediately, I don't always sweep up the alarmingly multifluous dog hair that covers our house in a thin layer, and causes tumbleweeds.
But I have a threshold, and it's 2-3 days, or 2-3 daily mitigation events.
So, if I come out of the bathroom, having just spread a precious dime-sized amount of $50 anti-aging moisturizer on my hands, and I come into the kitchen, first thing in the morning (before my stomach has settled due to having a deal with the mucus of 8 hous of hayfever post-nasal drip) to find a revolting black, dried out avocado skin from yesterday's sandwich on the counter, and I have to pick it up up put it in the dustbin, but the dustbin is full to overflowing for the third day in a row, and I have to get some Bounty kitchen roll to shove the stuff in there down to get the revolting avocado peel to fit into it and, in doing so, some other trash touches my hand, and so I have to go and wash my hands and thereby wash off my expensive moisturizer, that's two things.
Sound the alarm!
Disgust inspiration!
Tolerance level breached.
I can't eat breakfast now, because I feel slightly sick.
I am ready to skin you alive with a blunt butter knife.
It's no use nagging you about it at that point. It's first thing in the morning for you too, you haven't had your coffee, and I haven't shaken my morning fatigue enough to start an unpleasant discussion.
And so this post-it of wrath, allowing me to vent.
That is all.
To read other uberbitchy post-its of wrath, click here.