The Naked Truth

My husband has no pants to wear. Well, he has pants, but they are all members of various suits he owns. His khakis and his jeans have all disappeared into the black hole of laundry and this week, he's had to rely on suits and odd nylon exercise pants to get by. Fortunately, he spent a day at home while I was on death's door, and then a day in bed, so he suffered minimally.

But he said when he goes to work naked next week and people ask, what should he say? And I said, "Tell them your wife has been sick. No, tell them you are helpless and can't iron your own pants."

We are so traditional. He'd happily take them to the dry cleaners to be pressed but do you realize that would cost $4.00 per pair? I can iron six pairs--maybe more--in an hour, which gives us a rate of $24.00 per hour to have those pants pressed. I can't bear to pay for what I do so quickly. And no. He doesn't iron. He also doesn't cook, do laundry or breastfeed babies.

The sad and obvious fact is that I am ill-suited to house-wifery. Perhaps it's because a truly traditional housewife, in the 1950s sense of the word, would not be schooling her children at home. She would not be fooling around on the internet or watching cable television. She'd be wearing pearls and pumps and ironing her grateful husband's pants. And she'd do it while wearing perfectly applied lipstick.

I am a sorry excuse for a housewife. I admit it. Not only do I not keep up with the ironing, I also don't do a very good job keeping things spic and span. The other day I read an obituary (I always read them) in which a deceased woman was described: "she loved keeping an immaculate house for her husband." Oh dear. That will so NOT be in my obituary. Mine will read more like, "She read a lot and liked People magazine and wrote her own blog. She dusted as little as possible and often forgot to plan dinner."

It's not that I don't enjoy an immaculately kept home. Oh no, far from it. It's just that I live with these other people who are constantly undoing what I've done. They have no regard for tidy rooms and neat cupboards. They feel no compunction to pick up trash they might have dropped. They leave their shoes exactly wherever they take them off. Laundry never finds its way to the laundry room. They leave crumbs on the counters, grease on the stove, and a sticky trail wherever they go.

And I've tried to train them, teach them, encourage them. I have. And as a recovering perfectionist, I've decided to just surrender to the chaos rather than drive them all into therapy.

If I could stand it, I'd be like one of those people you see in shopping mall food courts--you know the ones with the rolling trashcan and the little spray bottle who wipe up after slobs who leave messes? But I don't want to spend my time following people around, straightening up and putting stuff away and wiping down the tables. It's hopeless and boring and repetitive. And did I mention repetitive?

A couple of days ago, I saw Dr. Phil's wife on his show. She's fifty, you know, and terminally cute and perky and well-groomed. And the whole show was about how she does it, how You, Too, Should Take Care of Yourself. Apparently, she is wholly devoted to remaining attractive for Dr. Phil--she uses a team of professionals, a skin-care regimen, an exercise regimen, all kinds of regimens, laser treatments, plus a nightly bath filled with expensive potions. Staying cute sounded like a full-time job to me, the kind of job a former cheerleader would sign up for. I was not a cheerleader.

I'm not that kind of a wife, either, one devoted to my looks and my body. My physical self hardly rates a thought, not to mention expensive cosmetic counter products. I haven't even had a haircut in fifteen months. I don't buy outfits and I never shop for shoes. My workout equipment is holding all the wrinkled pants my husband can't wear.

As I said, I am ill-suited to be a wife. And that's the naked truth. Just don't tell my husband.