May 3, 2006

His Jobs, Her Jobs

“Where’s my blue shirt?” I asked my wife Sally the other day.

“On the closet floor,” she said.

“What’s it doing there?”

“Wrinkling,” she replied.

In a way, I feel sorry for her. She has spent the last 42-plus years trying to get me to properly hang up my clothes.  Quite frankly, I don’t like to hang my clothes in the closet  because it is a waste of time.  Besides, I figure that responsibility belongs to my wife.  The way I see it, married couples — even older ones— should work as a team. And we do.

Sally takes it for granted I’ll perform certain tasks around the house, like taking out the garbage, mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges, washing the cars, making sure the cars have gas, fixing leaky sinks and plugged toilets, sweeping the basement, vacuuming the upstairs and shoveling snow.

She, on the other hand, graciously accepts such challenging household chores as painting her toenails, watching the Food Network and shopping for new shoes and purses.

With each of us doing our jobs, it seems to work out fine.

Why just the other day while she was applying another coat of color to her toenails as Paula Deen put the finishing touches on a peach cobbler, I walked past the front window with 43 sacks of garbage slung Santa-like over my shoulder.  But I didn’t mind. In fact, it felt good to be working together as a married couple.

At least six times a week she tells me “The next time you leave clothes strewn all over the bedroom floor, I’m going to pack them up and send them to the Salvation Army.”

I shrugged off those threats until the other day when I saw a old man coming out of a Salvation Army store.

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