Tagged: housework

Pets

OK. Y’all know how mild-mannered and easygoing I am, yeah? Well, I’m about to declare summat that will REALLY make a lot of people think slightly differently of me. It’s a very controversial subject. Very incendiary. I’m going to be outcast from society after I say this. Like a pariah. With an extraordinary arse. But a pariah, nonetheless.

Here goes.

I don’t like pets.

Hate them, in fact.

They are stupid. Stupid pets. All they are are ANIMALS that live in your HOUSE. How lame is that? Animals live in fields, innit. Or, erm, underground. Or the sky. Or zoos. Not houses. Especially not my house. No way! My house is minging enough as it is, why would I want animal shizzle crapping up the place as well?

I feel very strongly about this, but only just feel brave enough to admit it cos, y’know, people get a bit precious about pets. Whatevs. You love your pets, fine. Love them. Just know that, essentially, having a pet means cleaning up after it all the time, and then they die. I like to admire animals from afar. Like, the lions in Africa are GREAT, just don’t be a lion in my kitchen. I would not appreciate that. That is why we have TVs, so that we can watch these great animals in their natural habitats without having to worry about them taking a dump behind the sofa or eating us.

Pets. What good pets are there? None. I once attempted to buy some fish. The idea of pink gravel in a goldfish bowl pleased me more than the notion of having a fish, I guess. I got as far as discovering you can’t just buy a fish and tip it into a bowl – they need to acclimatise and the water needs to be AERATED – FFS – and then I v rapidly lost interest. Cats? Nah, too spiky. Dogs are too needy. Gerbils and hamsters are too small and squeaky. Rabbits are evil. Guinea pigs look like they panic a lot. Reptiles are creepy. Birds in cages is just WRONG. The only pet I may consider ever getting is a tortoise and that’s only cos they sleep for most of the year and you can keep them in a box. What other pets are there?

I have a child who can’t clean up after herself. That is work enough. Why complicate matters by adding a WILD BEAST to the mix? Unfortunately Moo seems genuinely fascinated by animals – all animals, dammit – and I can see I’m going to have many battles on my hands when she gets old enough to demand we get a pet.

Oh and one last thing. People who call themselves ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’ in reference to their pet? That is EEEEWWWW. Stop it. You did not conceive nor give birth to the animal. Please don’t act like you did. Eeeewwww.

So c’mon. How unpopular am I now? I don’t like pets. This makes me some kind of monster, yeah?

Got any good pet stories?

Purge

So as well as unfollowing a load of spare folk on Twitter, I’ve also been doing my bit for the environment by chucking out bagfuls of crap that I’ve been hoarding about the place for a while. ‘Mmm, so cathartic!’ I promise myself, as yet another black sack bounces down the stairs, on its way to the landfill site formerly known as outside-my-front-door. Black sacks of crap. How do I have SO MUCH crap? Where does it come from? I don’t remember acquiring it. That’s bad, right? Right. Hence my ongoing domestic streamlining. What I’m handily naming (rhyme alert) my innate ‘urge to purge’.

There are numerous places one can store crap, even in the smallest of abodes. Under my bed. On top of chests of drawers. In cupboards. Under the stairs. In the downstairs loo. Behind, around and on top of the actual downstairs loo. In the dungeon. In wicker storage boxes which once promised so much in terms of useful storage, but then just became, sadly and inevitably, receptacles for crap. There’s crap on top of crap. Crap within crap. Bags of crap in boxes of crap, hidden behind crap with more crap on top for extra camouflage. Crap I’d forgotten about, crap I hadn’t forgotten about but was studiously ignoring, crap I was fully aware of and hated, crap I like and can’t get rid of but know I should, crap I love and won’t part with until it is yanked from my cold, dead grip, and crap that is not crap but only masquerading as crap until I become enlightened to its actual use once more.

That’s a lot of FARKING CRAP.

This purge is continuous and lengthy. I see no end to it. I am responsible for 80% of the country’s rubbish at the moment. It is sitting in the bins outside my house. Well, actually, the bins aren’t outside my house, they’re up by the main road, and I can’t see them, which is excellent, cos then I can absolve myself of the terrible fact that I have filled all the bins, in the universe, ever. With my purged crap.

What I can, I donate to charity. The charity shops on Gloucester Rd are currently displaying many items from my past wardrobes within their windows. Just a bit spooky and weird-a-go-go, as I walk along and think, ‘Oh that’s a nice dress… and cardigan… and scarf… that I once wore. That exact outfit they have on the mannequin I wore to someone’s wedding two years ago. And looks better there. Damn.’

At least I haven’t bought anything back that I once owned. Yet.

But some things I can’t donate. The crap, mostly. So that goes in black sacks. Black sacks of doom.

I know why I’m doing this. Purging is good, yeah? In this way? New beginnings, letting go of the past, all that stuff. The ex and I will have to sort all the joint purchases soon. He’s moving away and making a new life for himself – no need to hang on to the past, is there. Some things are precious and won’t be purged, but other stuff? Stuff is only stuff. Crap. Things neither of us need, nor want. This current purge of mine is a kind of preparation, I think, for the next, significant, tandem purge. Good times.

In the meantime, anyone want some good quality crap? I have LOADS.

What do you hang on to, that you really should purge? Are you a hoarder, or do you find it easy to let go?

 

Washing

I have many enemies.

I know – it’s scarcely credible. But it’s true. There are many of my nemesiseseseseses floating around out there. One day I will vanquish them and be Queen of the Universe, or something. But while I’m waiting for my most excellent supernatural powers to accrue, there is a more localised foe that I am in need of thwarting.

The washing.

The bastard washing.

WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? Am I really so repugnantly filthy that my clothes need washing on such a regular basis? Sure – knickers – YES. Yes, they are definitely repugnantly filthy. Jeezus. It’s like crusty-lady-spaff is going out of fashion. But the rest of my attire? How does it end up in the dirty washing basket all the time? The other evening, I swear I put a jumper back in my drawers. I turn away for a moment. I look back. Lo and behold, it has CREPT into the wicker receptacle I now recognise as my enemy’s evil lair. Lured, no doubt, by the promise of fabric softener and a rather titillating spin cycle. Something primeval, magical, and fundamentally fiendish is going on here.

What the actual fark? In this manner, the washing is NEVERENDING. It never ceases. And in this abominable weather, with no means to dry it outside, I am in the looming and ominous presence of a constant clothes horse, draped with the recumbent and whiffy forms of my slackened clothing. I have piles of crumpled, faintly moist apparel everywhere. The house smells of clean, damp crotch. And not in a good way.

You may urge me to keep washing. To keep appeasing the nefarious and ever-hungry, ever-gaping mouth’d washing machine. To keep shoving handfuls of grubby fabric into its darkest, most glorious hole. But I can’t go on for much longer. I am weak and weary, almost spent. I can’t bend to its will indefinitely. I need to reclaim some sense of dignity! I must stand my ground!

So I am plotting and hatching and formulating. I will not be beaten. Not by the bastard washing. I suspect the answer lies in maybe only having one outfit, ever, and not caring how I smell? Yeah, I admit, there are some flaws there. Needs work.

Who has enemies within the household? Does your washing hold you to ransom? Does your dust do dastardly deeds? Has your ironing declared war on your sanity? If so, what strategies do you employ?

Momentum

Wake up. Get up. Get baby. Go downstairs.

Drink milk. Eat breakfast. Get washed. Get dressed.

Sit down. Stand up. Put down. Pick up.

Cup of tea. Watch TV. Read a book. Read a book.

Talking, listening. Staring, yawning.

Change nappy. Wipe face. Wipe hands. Stand in kitchen.

Stand in kitchen. Stand in kitchen. Stand in kitchen.

Sit down. Stand up. Put down. Pick up.

Cuddled, tickled. Slapped, pulled.

Get food. Feed baby. Get food. Feed me.

Cup of tea. Watch TV. Draw a picture. Read a book.

Raining. Raining. Staring, yawning.

Baby sleeps. Time creeps. Fingers twitch. Eyes itch.

Day goes by. Try not to cry. Cup of tea. Watch TV.

Thinking, thinking. Stand in kitchen.

Stand in kitchen. Stand in kitchen. Stand in kitchen.

Sit down. Stand up. Put down. Pick up.

Later. Dinner time. Bath time. Bed time.

On my own. Quite alone. Cup of tea. Watch TV.

This. Is what. Keeps. Me going.

This. Is what. I do.

 

Tidy

My mum babysat Moo for me last night, while I went and Tudored in a desultory fashion on stage somewhere. As well as eating my best biscuits, my mum also did my washing up.

Let’s skip over the biscuit-eating part for the moment. Largely cos I’m still aghast that someone touched my best biscuits without my permission. I mean, I know she gave birth to me and raised me and everything, but seriously – my BEST biscuits? Could she not have eaten my stale macaroons instead? Or the water biscuits? Yes I know they’re savoury but they’re still farking biscuits, innit. Anyway, if you’re reading this, I love you, mum. Don’t eat my biscuits.

Washing up. I hate washing up. This is why: slimy food crap. Slimy food crap on plates. Slimy food crap on plates in the water. Slimy food crap from plates in the water, floating ON TOP OF the water, and then it becomes slimy food crap IN THE SINK. Slimy food crap that I then have to scrape from the plughole-slimy-food-crap-catching-thing and put into the bin. Where it becomes bin crap, and by proxy, bin juice. And we all know bin juice is RANCID MINGE.

But I will do the washing up. I have to . There is no husband here to do it for me any more. And generally, I keep on top of it. I’d only left it last night cos there wasn’t much and I had to get ready for my miserable Tudor flounce-a-bout.

I mention it though because I’ve had a house guest recently who did rather more than the washing up for me. In fact, this house guest practically SPRUNG CLEANED my house. They cleaned my kitchen, including the bin and all the bin juice. They removed the mould from my shower. They hoovered. And dusted a bit. And yes, did the washing up. A lot.

I am grateful. I am, truly. It is no secret that I am a domestic slattern. There are better things to do than housework, innit. Like watching Moo try to jump (‘C’mon, Moo! It’s not jumping till your feet leave the ground! TRY HARDER!’ *falls about laughing*) and active spider avoidance, or eating biscuits (which I can’t do now, THANKS MUM) or grooming unicorns, or practising voodoo.

I thought I was tidy, though. I really did. I thought I was coping with the houseworkisms. Seems not, if a guest feels the need to demouldify my bathroom (honestly, where did they find that Haz-Mat suit?) and my mum does my washing up for me. I know, I know, they’re HELPING me and that’s GREAT, I do appreciate it. But a tiny part of me – the stupid, juvenile, petulant part – sees it as a massive criticism too.

They’re right. I know they’re right. I do need to improve my domestic skillz. I need to man up and find some rubber gloves and spank the shit out of my cruddy house.

Tomorrow, probably.

How do you keep tidy? (no, not talking about muff for once) (but you can tell me that if you want to)

Door

The bathroom door is broken.

You can open it from the outside. But not from the inside.

Somehow the in-laws broke it last week. The husband found this out to his cost. He had to break out of bathroom using a pair of eyebrow tweezers to unscrew the lock.

I would not have been so resourceful. I would probably still be in there. Chewing on the loo brush for sustenance. Napping in the bath. Listening to Moo trashing the rest of the house during one of her wild parties.

This is how rubbish I am. HOW AM I GOING TO COPE WITHOUT A MAN IN THE HOUSE?

Seriously. Should I just pay a handyman to live under the stairs or something?

Don’t even get me started on what I’ll eat. HOW DO I COOK?

*gasp*

WHO WILL GET RID OF THE MOTHS??

*faint*

 

The Undomestic Goddess

Hi! *waves* That’s me, that is. The Undomestic Goddess. And undomestic isn’t even a proper word. But indomestic sounds weird and I’m thinking disdomestic is also very wrong. So undomestic it is. The red squiggly line of doom is working hard already, and I’ve not even finished the first paragraph.

And today on Twitter I got FFed by some lovely folk who reasoned that I was worth following for my ‘scurvy sense of humour and reassuringly slatternly ways’. I am strangely proud of those accolades. Makes me sound like a pirate with a really messy ship.

Reassuringly slatternly, eh? Yeah, I am. I am not a good housewife. I have no idea why anyone would want me as a wife, and put me in their house. I don’t cook. And by cook, I mean assemble food in a meaningful and creative way and serve it to other people. If I’m on my own, I eat bread and cheese. Out of the packets. If I can be arsed.

I don’t wash clothes. Mostly because I can’t figure out the washing machine. It beeps at me and stares ominously with its one round, black eye.

I rarely wash up. The smell and feel of slimy washing-up water makes me barf.

The bedroom is a tip. I have boots, shoe-boxes, toiletries, biscuits, books, Moo’s too small clothes, my too small clothes, biscuits, a hair-dryer, unicorns, spare car parts, biscuit boxes, biscuits and magazines piled up by the bed. Yeah, it’s true – so very sexy, innit?

I think I have some standards. I don’t like rats, so will probably stop short of encouraging them moving in. Y’all know how I feel about fleas *hawk* *spit*. I do stoop occasionally and pick bits off the floor, in case Moo decides to hone her already capable scavenging skills. And once in a while, I’ll let her lick the dust from the surfaces. Dust is mainly healthy, yeah?

Housework. What’s it all about, anyway? I say, slatterns rule. Big up the undomestic goddesses!