I just realized why 99% of women's robes have shorter sleeves. I have always been irritated by that. I am tall and I have longer arms, I've always figured, so I have spent a lot of my clothes shopping in men's departments, because I like the feeling of a sleeve hanging over part of my hand. It's probably just a subconscious way of making me feel smaller than I really am. I am 37 years old and have been married almost 16 years and it just now occurred to me that it is not that I am some gargantuan female, it's that women are not given the opportunity to actually LOUNGE in their robes. They may wear them, but they still have to WORK around the house, and long sleeves get in the way.
It is just another Saturday...Another morning before dawn when I really would've rather stayed in bed. But the little girl gets up before dawn and she comes in our room and wakes up the dogs who start panting and pacing because they have to go outside. Now, I could roll over and ignore this little circus and try to catch a few more Zs, but as hard as I try, my own anxiety also has been awakened, and so starts the voices in my head. "The dogs are large and they will pee in your bedroom. Do you really want to smell pee in your bedroom? On that nice, new frieze carpet that cost so much money? No probably you don't want to deal with that before 7am on Saturday morning. Coffee will help. Let the dogs out, warm up yesterday's fresh pot of coffee, sit by your computer, and have a lazy morning..." About then, the husband growls like a Papa Bear because the little girl is shaking the bed and lighting up the room with her hand-held video game, and that is a sure sign she and I should make a run for it (before Daddy tries to eat us alive.)
Well, before I left the room, I donned the new robe that came in the mail yesterday...it is red and cozy and goes almost to the floor and it even has a hood (for what, I don't know.) Uniform for a lazy Saturday morning, I call it. Upon coming downstairs and letting out dogs, I am quickly reminded of how I ignored the dishes in the sink last night because I was too tired to care, and how the oldest son who is responsible for the trash was supposed to get the turkey breast carcass out of the crock pot when he took out the kitchen garbage, but "there wasn't enough room in the bag" so he just left it. About that time, the middle son comes down and announces that the upstairs toilet is clogged again and it needs to be 'fixed' as he heads into the main floor bathroom.
Well Lord knows who has to plunge the toilet, ME. In my nice new smooshy red robe. With the sleeves that are just short enough to work in.
You'd THINK that plunging a toilet might make it to the list of chores that the male species would handle. But in this house, there isn't a divided list of chores. Pretty much everything comes down to me. Doesn't matter how hard I've tried to get help. When the man of the house sets the tone, there isn't much you can do to change it. (Except eat chocolate and take Xanax, which doesn't change the circumstances; it just gives you break from caring.)
Sure, Papa Bear is still sleeping. I COULD ask one of the boys to do it. But the oldest one is engrossed with killing Nazis this morning (on Xbox, of course,) and the middle son can barely turn off a light switch let alone understand the science behind plunging a toilet. It's just not worth the war, I've decided. So, I went and plunged the toilet and nearly upchucked last night's stuffing, quickly inhaled some cinnamon room spray, and all was well with the world.
Except the dishes and the turkey carcass were still chanting my name like something on Ghost Hunters.
I came back to the kitchen and eyed the coffee pot with yesterday's fresh coffee in it...But I knew if I sat down with coffee at my computer, those voices from the kitchen sink would just irritate me and I wouldn't be able to enjoy the darn coffee anyway. So I made a deal with myself. I'd take care of the dishes before the coffee and that way, I wouldn't have anything to give myself a guilt trip over (for at least two hours, which is when the laundry pile starts sending that annoying little chant to my brain.)
That's when I discovered how convenient it is that this new robe has shorter sleeves. I stood over the sink, rinsing out a mashed potato pot, thinking about the old robe I had from the men's department with the sleeves that hang over my hands and make me feel small. Doing dishes in it is a pain in the rear, because no matter how many times I roll those sleeves up and shove them over my elbows, they still fall down and end up just wet enough to drive me crazy. I started cursing at my soundly sleeping husband inside my head right about then. I can do dishes in all of ten minutes, but there is a part of me that truly begs to just sit around. Like everyone else in the house.
Do you know what the brutal honesty is? I tend to be a nearly obsessive house cleaner and decorator, and I truly enjoy keeping house and I feel blessed that I have been able to stay at home to raise our children and take care of things instead of having to juggle a full time job, daycare AND the housekeeping. BUT....I also am plagued by the fact that I am married to someone who just does not believe in helping out around the house. I know I should just accept things the way they are and concentrate on the blessing part, but the voices in my head JUST WON'T SHUT UP.
I was born in 1973 on the heels of the bra-burning party time. I grew up with a dad who did dishes and folded laundry and carried in groceries. So to be married to someone whose main concern after his shift at work is to make sure the couch is weighted down and the remote control feels the warmth of his hand, makes for a bumpy ride.
Come to think of it, he's kind of a younger, better looking version of Archie Bunker.
Truly, if it wasn't for that darn marching all those women did back in the '60s, demanding help around the house and gender equality, I'd be just fine. I'd be my husband's happy beck-and-call girl in a cute little dress with high heels asking how high he wants me to jump, making sure his slippers were lined up neatly next to his chair, and training one of the dogs to bring him the newspaper. I'd go to bed every night thankful that he graced me with his presence and how lucky I am to be his dutiful wife.
Instead, I am my husband's often-irritated beck-and-call girl, in a long, red smooshy robe, plunging toilets and cursing at the pile of dishes, and trying to remember when my next counseling appointment is and when to pick up my antidepressant prescription from the drug store. I am still thankful that I'm his wife and I still love him very much, and I do feel blessed...that I don't have to worry about slippers and newspapers. (He reads the newspaper on his iPhone.)
I don't think things have changed entirely. I think everyone still tries to put up that shiny, happy facade: The perfect house with the perfect children and that bright white picket fence and everyone gets along and everyone has money and can afford big Disney vacations and isn't it wonderful how my life turned out exactly (or better than) how we planned it. The only people who have problems are the ones on the Jerry Springer show and the couples who live in Hollywood.
Give me a break!
I have found it SO liberating, when I meet other women online or at the school, who open up about their not-so-perfect lives. What's wrong with admitting that our dreams didn't come true? Doesn't it make us stronger, to say that we're learning to make the best of what we have? And if we can't make the best of it, we can at least talk about it and have a chocolate eating, Xanax popping coffee hour before we go back home and start dealing with it all over again.
Speaking of coffee, yesterday's fresh pot of coffee that I was going to reheat after the dishes, was empty. I had to make a fresh pot. And so, here I sit, in front of my computer, with my fresh coffee, in my new robe, squeezing an hour or two to myself out of this just-another-Saturday.
Did you say something? Oh no...it wasn't you. It was that dang laundry pile.
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