Happy Memorial Day, To Me

Kellie has a long list of chores and other household duties she wants me to attend to today, but I objected. I reminded her that today is Memorial Day, and since I am a retired veteran, she should memorialize me.  “Don’t you have to be dead first?” she inquired. “That can be arranged if you don’t help out a little more around here.”

 

Like many husbands and wives, Kellie and I frequently disagree about the distribution of housework. She always wants me to do more, and I prefer to do none at all. Before I retired from the navy, it was fairly easy to convince Kellie that my share of the domestic duties should be rather minimal, especially since I was often at sea. Even when I was not deployed, I usually worked such long hours that escaping housework was essentially a fait accompli. Now that I’m at home and unemployed (which is how Kellie views my retirement), it is substantially more difficult to rationalize my domesticaphobia.

According to Kellie, before I retired I couldn’t find the laundry room (that’s a gross exaggeration). She also claims that prior to last week I never cleaned a toilet (that’s not an exaggeration). I concede that Kellie does most of the chores that are normally considered housework, but I take care of other matters that she cannot or does not want to do. Still, she often feels that I’m not carrying my share of the burden.

The apparent inequities in the division of labor stems from differences in the types of labor that each of us typically performs. Most household tasks that Kellie normally tends to, I’ll admit, are little more than physical and mental drudgery: doing laundry, going shopping, cleaning bathrooms, paying bills, and doing all sorts of other mind-numbing tedium. These are important tasks, but there is little joy to be derived from performing any of them. On the other hand, most of the duties in my realm tend to be more cerebral in nature: tutoring our youngest daughter; managing our investments; serving as live in technical support for Kellie, which is no small endeavor since she’s electromechanically challenged; and handling any other task that requires research, analysis, or writing. She should recognized that just because I spend the better part of my day in the loft sitting at my computer, wearing only boxer shorts and tee shirt, and seldom getting dressed till after noon, that doesn’t mean that I am not engaged in some productive activity. It’s just much harder to recognize intellectual chores; they can easily be mistaken for wasting time on Facebook.

I’ve only scratched the surface of the housework issue, but a full exposition of the conflict would take more verbiage than anybody really wants to read on a holiday.  For now, the debate continues, unresolved. But since today is Memorial Day, Kellie has relented. “Okay, you don’t have do any housework today, but come tomorrow, you’re going to help me with a few things,” she demanded. “Otherwise, on this day next year, you’ll be memorializing the death of your sex life.”
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