Monday, May 30, 2011

Somebody Needs To

After lolling about doing nothing on Saturday, having arisen at 10:00, too lazy, even, to eat bonbons and watch a soap opera if he'd been a housewife on a weekday...the #1 son drug himself into the laundry room to shop for clean clothes, and had the nerve to announce: "Somebody needs to do laundry."

Well. Seeing as how he and I were the only two persons in the Mansion, I had a feeling he was insinuating that I needed to do laundry. Upon ruminating on the fact that #1 has never done one load of laundry in all his born days, I was sure he was talking about me. And because I don't take kindly to being told what to do by sixteen-year-old Future Male Chauvinists of America, I made up my own little need-to list.

To garner the full effect, you must channel Tommy Lee Jones as Doolittle Lynn, coming home from the coal mine with dust on his face, to the little house in town where he moved 13-year-old Loretta as soon as he married her. It's the scene where the supper is so bad that Doo takes it out on the porch and calls for the dog. Then lectures Loretty on all the things she needs a little more time to learn how to do: "You need a little more time to learn how to cook. You need a little more time to learn how to clean the d*mn house. Plus you need a little more time to learn how to love your man the way you're supposed to."

At the Mansion, somebody needs to...

...bring the dumpster down from the end of the driveway where it's been since Tuesday.

...bag up the leaning tower of trash that is balanced on the wastebasket like an ongoing game of garbage Jenga.

...put away the stack of underwear and socks that have been laying on the living room floor since the first of the year, enjoying an open-air, convivial resting place rather than a dark dresser drawer.

...pour out the Diet A&W Root Beer and recycle the can that has been sitting on the cutting block for three days.

...pick up the Easter basket candy wrappers that decorate the coffee table.

...show respect for the hand that feeds him, rather than chewing it like a wolverine until it is a bloody stump.

Just sayin'.

3 comments:

Mommy Needs a Xanax said...

There's a 16 year old girl somewhere who will be very grateful one day if you make him learn how to do laundry. She doesn't know it yet, and is probably bitching at her own mom about un-washed laundry, but one day....one day....she will thank the Hillbilly Mom.

Jennifer said...

OHhhhhhhhhh I remember my Mom as she dealt with my 3 brothers at that age.

I think that was when she drug em by the ear and showed them how to operate the washer and dryer and told them from now on they were the one responsible for their own laundry take it or leave it.

or something like that..

Really..I am surprised my three brothers all survived to see 30.

Hillbilly Mom said...

MommyNeeds,
One time I trusted him to put a load of wet clothes from the washer into the dryer. After detailed instructions on what heat setting and how much time...he forgot to turn on the dryer.

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Jennifer,
It's going to have to come to that. Especially when he tries on a shirt and changes his mind and tosses it in the dirty clothes basket.