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When you put a dumb slob in charge of the House, it’s amazing how fast things go downhill. (Photo by Ryo Chijiiwa/Flickr)
Almost a week ago now, She Who Must be Obeyed decamped to Florida. That left me, for the first time in ages, in total charge of the government of this House, and gave me a chance to deconstruct the oppressive administrative state under which I had been suffocating.
I began by signing several executive orders repealing long-standing, senseless regulations. It is now okay, for example, to leave the toilet seat in the up position, for the convenience of the male member of the household, so to speak. Eating ice cream directly from the carton, for hours at a time, is perfectly acceptable. Portion control, especially where steaks and french fries are concerned, is a thing of the past. Having a beer for breakfast, or declaring happy hour to be any hour that appears on a clock, are now deregulated practices. If any of these practices have serious side effects, I don’t know about them, and if I don’t know about them they cannot possibly hurt me.
I will admit that, especially on the first few nights, I experienced a few bouts of midnight nausea and early-morning headaches. Such is the price of freedom.
This is, after all, what the American people — well, at least male American people — have been yearning for, for these many years: a chance to let their inner slob run free. Political correctness has robbed us of our pride, not to mention our natural odor and our butchering skills. So it is a great relief to have no controls once again. You know, like when we were pre-teenagers.
Dirty clothes go anywhere. Dirty dishes pile up in and near the sink, dining room, living room and bedroom. Dust bunnies swirl across the floors like tumbleweeds in a Texas windstorm. Stereo and TV volume controls are set on “stun” and stay there, while the dusty drum set gets dragged out and pounded to within an inch of its life. (Although this brought an intrusion from the Judicial Branch of home government — the neighbors called the cops. Turns out that “if the head of the House does it, it’s legal” does not apply outside the House. Either.)
The one big project I always intended to do if I ever got possession of the House for long enough was to build a soundproof no-girls-allowed man-cave tree-house with a wet bar — and get Mexico to pay for it. Unbelievably, the project got vetoed by the bank, the neighbors, and She Who Must Be Obeyed.
Who returns tomorrow.
So the dishwasher, clothes washer, vacuum cleaner and shower are all running non stop. I haven’t had a drink in an hour, and tonight it’s a sensible dinner and early bedtime. Tomorrow it’s back to a life of rules, manners, restraints, proscriptions, order and cleanliness. No longer President of the House, I will have to content myself once again with being just the Loyal Opposition, complaining vociferously about the administrative state.
What a blessed relief.
HAA-HAAAAAAA! Good one, Mr. Lewis.
I usually go the other way and become a catatonic recluse when The Boss goes on vacation (usually to visit child with family in CA). My robotic functionality goes from “get it done asap” to “idle.” I don’t watch tv much, but can spend days looking at the computer, wandering around various blogs, going off on tangents, looking stuff up that I had forgotten about, and playing mind-numbingly boring games of mahjong until stupefied enough that I can’t keep my eyes open.
I think the best part of my day is always when i’m asleep, so I try to maximize that. Since i’m no chef, I tend not to eat much that needs anything more than reheating or microwaving. It’s established fact that I lose weight when she’s away.
Without the “spousal” controls, I’ll get nothing done for days at a time! What joy!
Well, I gotta get off my ass and start raking leaves before the boss gets back from the store, to illustrate that i’m “doing something.”
Have great days, everyone.
So, is anybody tuned in to the allegory here? Anybody?
All will be well, at least when SWMBO left, the house wasn’t leaking, messy, structurally unsound, the bills unpaid and she hadn’t picked a fight with half a dozen of your neighbours. Then there’d be little hope for a return to order.
Yes Tom, I understood it as allegory. I think the drinking beer at any hour of the day for someone your/my age gave it away. Although, while we were in Engineering school living in residence one year it was kind of like that – until the student loan funds dried up.
Our Economics classes tended to be 75% engineers, so to get under our perturbed-why-am-I-teaching-engineers-and-not-Econ-majors profs’ skin we would request all monetary units be expressed in beer. That’s the only currency we could understand.
Ironically, my better half is also in Florida while I look out the window and weep with the Spring snow here in Ontario.
I think I might. Your house is the nation and you’re The Donald, wanting the Mexicans to build the wet bar in your man cave. Is life that hard without the women around? Y’all should have voted for Jill, as I did, but I have a suspicion many people here did. Good one, though, Tom, I really enjoyed it!! I thought it was your April Fools column!
I happen to be a bit of a squatter myself. I believe I can say with a clear conscience that I have often made serious attempts at tidying up my own ‘man-cave’, except I have a (believe me) very untidy mother and at least one (much older than me) sibling whose unhappy married life has forced him to come stay with me, bringing along with him his own big, fat bunch of clutter. And learning about all the bad news about the state of the world (as reported here by The Daily Impact), I now find myself even less motivated to tidy up. (What’s the point?) I still keep the bathroom and sinks squeaky-clean — and that’s about it for now…
Anyone wanna come for an afternoon tea? (Oh, wait, I live in Singapore…)
Yo, T. L. – I am sooo glad your back! Don’t know why, but today I thought, “Gee I ought to check that blog I used to check daily.” And here you are. It’s been a nice day, catching up on your posts since The Great Hiatus. Better than shoveling dirt over the two dead possums in the dog yard that are past any hope of shovel disposal.
Your not the Lone Ranger. John Michael Greer is also taking a well deserved break.
But I digress. To the matter at hand. Through some fancy stepping and well developed radar, I’ve managed to make it to 67, without spouse or chillin’. Not that I’m any great prize, but as the ratio between widows and single men becomes more skewed, with age, the pressure increases.
I occasionally hang with some homies who are mostly coupled. In their company, I usually refer to myself as “an undomesticated male.” They think it’s awful that I’m on my own, but I think I detect a little wistfulness. What I like best about living on my own is that no one messes with my stuff (no I’m not a hoarder) and when I indulge in my little strange ways of doing things or minor weirdness, I don’t have to explain myself to anyone. And, yes, I see the allegory in your post. But it’s just such fun to run off on this little tangent. Lew
Thanks, Lew, and welcome back to us both.