Since I don’t have a real job, I do 99% of the housework and the errands. I would complain except my husband does 100% of the yardwork and the cooking and he provides health insurance.
I’m just going to shut up about it and write about the inequities of modern marriages in another post.
So here’s the story.
Yesterday, I went to the bird store because I bought a bag of seed that was moldy. This is totally unlike my bird store and they were super-awesome about the whole thing. I brought the bag to show them and they were like, “No worries. Just throw the old bird seed away. Grab another bag and you can get a second one free.”
Nice.
I put new bags in the trunk (with the old, moldy bag) and ran about 76 other errands. Then I came home, cleaned up around the house, and finally got around to feeding the birds. I went into the trunk of my car and found…
…maggots.
That’s right. Maggots.
After gagging about 46 times — even though there was no smell — I realized that the maggots were in the moldy bird food bag. And they were on the new bags of bird food.
I pulled everything out of my car — plastic trunk liner, other boxes, bags — and used the vacuum we have in the garage to decontaminate my entire car. Then I washed everything that was plastic. Then I thanked baby Jesus that I didn’t buy my new car, just yet, because I would have been super-pissed had this occurred in a nicer car.
And now I’m totally motivated to write my post on household labor, gender, and domestic chores because I am 100% sick and tired of crazy shit like this happening to me.
I need a wife.
36 comments ...wanna add one?
I would love to write a real ‘top notch’ response, but I am still laughing…
i’m still gagging!
Oh my god, you are so brave! If I would have seen those maggots I would have screamed and ran the other way. I am cringing now just thinking about it. Anyway, my husband is an OTR truck driver and hardly ever home so I am left to deal with just about everything. On one hand I was single for ages so I am used to doing things on my own, but on the other hand, I am married now and it’s a two way street. He should help. It’s not like he’s the soul bread winner. It takes tremendous effort to try to get him to do things on his days off. I can understand the fact that he needs to relax, but hey, I work two jobs and get things done. I don’t want a wife, I want Mr. Belvedere.
I am totally with DA Hooligan. I cannot stand to deal with maggots at all. We had a fly infestation this summer (went away for a long weekend, came home and they had slipped in through the patio door somehow) and even though we had emptied the trash, there was enough food residue for them to lay eggs and all that.
That smell…those wriggling bodies…okay, now I’m getting lightheaded.
I couldn’t eat rice for a very, very, very long time after something similar happened to me. Sorry…did I just ruin Bento’s for everyone now…..
So gross.
I want a mister belvedere or just an alice.
Hate to say, I’ve been there. I hear you girl, loud and clear. It’s even harder when you have to deal with household staff that don’t speak English, and the English speakers in the house think that you need to take care of everything, and it’s your fault things don’t work. Just because you don’t bring home the bacon doesn’t mean you can’t cook it properly. You need to manage people’s expectations and tell them, “look I can only do so much”.
I don’t have those problems. Not at all.
We recently had a maggot scare, relating to some charitable food donations from last winter which never actually got donated.
Thankfully, it turned out to be shredded wheat crumbs.
Hm. Either way, I’m on edge.
I don’t want a wife because then I’d have to appreciate her, take her out to dinner on a regular basis, and pretend I’m fascinated by all the crap she wants to talk about at the end of the day.
Unless I could find a wife who wasn’t like me AT ALL, then it might work. Maybe.
But I’d be happy with a slightly bigger paycheck so I could afford to hire a housecleaning service. And maybe a spider-killer who looked like Clive Owen. He could just sit in the living room all the time just waiting for a spider to appear. And maybe open jars and stuff.
Amy, you take Clive; I’ll take Hugh Jackman…
Uhh Laurie, I think I threw up in my mouth…yuck!
Oh, Amy, this is SOOO on! But can I have Johnny Depp, please??
Hi Amy. We’re available to sit on your couch and kill spiders. We work as a team.
Wait, let us not forget Daniel Craig.
Ha! You all made my morning! HellNOats, you’re hired!
you might love Judy Brady’s essay, “Why I Want a Wife” as much as I love this entry
http://www.columbia.edu/~sss31/rainbow/wife.html
I’ll have to go and read this. thanks!
Every woman needs a wife. It doesn’t matter if she is married with/without children or single. I want a wife.
Laurie – hats off on how well you handled the maggots.
I’m a tough broad. I can handle maggots. Then I whine. Ugh.
Black trash cans that don’t close well, miscellaneous food remnants (meat trimmings are especially good) and sunny days mean that we get maggots in the outdoor trash cans. When I roll the trash cans out to the curb on trash day (there’s some household inequity for you), there is a trail of maggots down the driveway out the the curb. I used to freak out and clean the driveway and eliminate all traces.
Then I discovered that we have birds around here that love them, and they do a much better job of getting rid of them. They tell their friends and next thing you know there’s a bird flash mob and then the maggots are all gone. The cats enjoy watching the action, too.
Still, if you figure out where to get a wife, I want in on that deal.
Birds? That’s an awesome idea. Hm.
Almost spit my coffee out when I got to the “baby Jesus” line. Hysterical. You have the best stories.
Maybe birds eat maggots. Nah, probably not.
@Trish, I was in the process of dialing a business call when I got to the “baby Jesus” line. I had to hang up, I got the giggles so bad. And as for birds trumping maggots, I haven’t looked at a food chain lately, but if I had my *wife* I would require him to know stuff like this (and math too.) -G.
Thanks, Trish!
I need a wife too. If any of you have ideas on how I might obtain one, that would be awesome
Sadly, my honors class in Women’s Literature isn’t paying off. *sigh*
Keep the faith, buddy.
Ok… Ewwwww. that made my mouth water in that “I’m gonna throw up” kind-of-way.
it was awful.
You thanked baby Jesus??? Moment of incredulity…
The Talledega Nights baby jesus, of course.
Maggots? I’ll take ‘em over giant cockroaches any day. I usually make Matt kill all the bugs, but 1 night when we lived in Dallas I woke up to use the loo at 3 am and was ambushed by 13 giant roaches. I freaked. I got a big boot, locked myself in the bathroom, stuck a rolled towel under the door and laid waste to them. It was awful. He didn’t hear a thing. I was kind of proud of myself, but he still is King Bug Killer.
You’re in the Raleigh-Durham area, right? I know a guy (Don’t ask.). He could have stolen the car, parked on a deserted country road, and fire-bombed your maggoty hooptie for a nomiminal fee. Heck, he owes me a favor, so he would have done it for the fun of it, probably (what’s more fun than blowin’ up a car?). You could ahve collected the insurance money and be driving your brand spankin’ new, shiny cynical mobile this week!
Nobody asks me!
After watching the show Sister Wives I’m starting to think communal living wouldn’t be so bad. You each have your own apartment within the huge house, and some of the women stay home and take care of all the household crappy stuff (laundry, grocery shopping, toilet scrubbing, cat poop and toddler barf removal) and other wives work their normal jobs. Someone is designated to get food on the table for the night, and I’m thinking their kids aren’t allowed to have “food preferences”, because everyone will eat out of some huge bubbling pot of something. But the woman actually seem fun, and as long as I was able to have my regular happy hours out with my friends, and long hours of alone-time with my People magazine and my Pepperidge Farm cookies in the fluted paper cups I could probably handle it. The only downside is having to sleep with that insufferable, long-haired “ad exec” once a week.
I must have bought a squash that was underripe a month or so ago, because I went to throw it out (I saw fruit flies in the area of the bowl it was sitting in so I knew it must be going bad) and it had ACTUAL MAGGOTS on it. I ran outside with it (luckily we are rednecks and have a wooded lot next to us where we surreptitiously throw nasty produce) yelling “EWEWEWEWEWEW” all the way, and chucked it over the fence. Then I checked myself over frantically in a move that this Jezebel post of gross stories referred to hilariously as the Cootie Dance of Terror. I’m not the most squeamish person in the world but this was horrifying.