I want a wife. One who handles the bed linens, specifically.
I ask for this because just for fun I tried an experiment. I left a laundry basket full of just-washed sheets and pillowcases in the middle of our living room. For a week. Just to see if Husband noticed that they needed folding.
Seven nights later, I gave in and folded them myself. It was time to change the sheets and our supply was getting dangerously low. (Ever since Oprah declared she has her minions change her sheets every other day, I feel guilty if we go four days. Apparently, she doesn’t like it when they aren’t “crisp” feeling anymore and suddenly I felt an ongoing need for “crispness,” too. Oprah’s got some power.)
Personally, I believe Husband does not believe bed linen laundry is in his domain. Somehow it is my job. Add that to the fact his Man Brain Chemicals – you know the ones that say “she might want to do something special with that and I might be messing it up upping the odds I’ll get yelled at” – kicked in. Or maybe it was his Man Eye Shields. You know the ones that make unfolded laundry – even baskets of it sitting in the middle of the living room – disappear. Or, perhaps it was Real Men Don’t Fold Sheets Week. Whatever.
No one told me that “chore domains” get established really quickly in marriage. I wish I had been warned. I would have been sure to choose which “duties” were mine and which were his much quicker. (Warning to all future LBBs – choose your side quickly. Otherwise, you’ll get stuck with the ones no one wants to do.)
Fortunately for me organizing the garage ended up with him. He did a wonderful job moving the recycling around today. (The bags of empty bottles, cans, newspapers and cardboard are still with us, but at least now we can get to the garbage can – also in his domain.) Hmmm. Maybe next time I should put the laundry in the garage?
Sheet-washing doesn’t need to be done more than once a week, barring illness, etc. We only have two sets of sheets per bed – one on, one gets washed. They do feel extra-nice the first night, though.
Life is too short to spend most of it washing and changing and folding sheets.
I can identify! So funny. We’ve been married five years and my Husband hasn’t folded so much as a sock in five years — not even when I was 9 months pregnant or recovering from my c-sections. If you’d left that laundry basket in the middle of my living room for the length of our marriage, it would still be gathering dust, and now, toys. Now that we have two sons, I live in a house with three boys who don’t do laundry. In fairness, however, Husband is a great handyman and I’ve never needed to haul a ladder out to change the lightbulbs in our 10-foot ceilings. I suppose there are always trade-offs.