Monday, October 24, 2011

I Bet Mud Huts are REALLY Hard to Clean

I'm a bit notorious for being a slob. In fact, when Nadine and I were roommates, I'm pretty sure she was plotting my death because she's a neat freak and my tendency to leave my hair on the shower walls was slowing whittling away her will to live.

My husband is Hispanic and he grew up in a proper Hispanic household in South America, where his mother did all the cooking and cleaning with the buckets of water she carried on her head back from the river. Okay. Not really. About the buckets I mean. But she did do all the cooking and cleaning. And so, before I married brown, I was not made immediately aware of the fact that this is what my new husband would expect from me.

When we first got together, Rodolfo seemed pretty laid back. It never really occurred to me that marriage would change the dynamic between us so drastically (yes, apparently I AM stupid). So when he liked it enough to put a ring on it (and, coincidentally, I liked it enough to put a green card on it), his expectations of my role became ... more defined? Let's say more defined. Sounds better than "he expected me to be his mom" or "he started acting like a dick".

My point is that Rodolfo expected me to clean and shit and I fucking HATE cleaning. It isn't that my standards for cleanliness are THAT low (shut up, Nadine), it's just that I have better things to be doing with my time. And when I clean, I tend to get all compulsive about it so it takes me an entire day by the time things are organized the way I want them to be. So mostly I wait till it's on the brink of shameful before I bother to clean up. And just to be clear, I don't mean "Hoarders" shameful. I'm talking like once a week cleaning. Unless it's changing cat litter. I put that shit off as long as humanly possible.

This has been a source of strain in my marriage but I can admit that I'm at fault on this one. While Rodolfo thinks I should be cleaning more, he's also come to realize that if he wants to maintain a certain standard of living, he's going to have to do it himself a lot of the time. Because even though that bitch grew up with chickens running through his mud hut, he really has pretty high standards for his living conditions.

Obviously I'm less slovenly now, mostly because I'm sick of picking dog hairs out of my kid's mouth, but Rodolfo still takes it upon himself to do the cleaning a lot of the time.

The thing of it is, he THINKS he is doing a super great job. He is not. That's the funny part. Let me break down a few of the problems for you:

Mops: Rodolfo does not believe in mops. I can't understand this. I'm all for making cleaning as easy as humanly possible, so I don't understand why he will not just let me buy a mop. You are probably wondering what he cleans the floor with (and subsequently expects that I clean the floor with). Does he get on his hands and knees and scrub? ABSOLUTELY NOT. He will take an old t-shirt, wrap it around the end of the broom, douse the floor in water and cleaner and push the dirt around with his not-absorbent-or-able-to-pick-up-dirt-pretty-much-at-all t-shirt. And then he will stand around proudly and admire the shit job he just did. I tried buying a Swiffer once, but he refused to let me buy the pads and simply wrapped his t-shirts around the Swiffer for a while.

Bathrooms: Rodolfo is a little weird about germs. Except he is weird about germs in a way that makes it clear that he doesn't understand anything about how germs work. A good example of this is how he is convinced that Caitlyn will get "diseases" (yes, plural) from petting the cat. Because cats have a multitude of cross-species diseases that we should worry about Caitlyn contracting through hand-to-fur contact. Same goes for the dog. So what I don't understand is how he insists on cleaning the bathroom with a sponge. Yes, the germiest thing on the planet. And he will use it to wipe down the sink and toilet then stow it all wet and disgusting under the sink for the next time. Are you wondering if he wipes down the bathtub with it too? Of course not... bathtubs don't get dirty and therefore never require cleaning. Obviously. It isn't like his WIFE is cleaning the bathtub!

Organization: When Rodolfo organizes, he puts things into two categories: "My Shit" and "Shit that Probably Needs to Go into the Garbage Already but My Wife is a Fucking Pack Rat for Keeping the Baby's Swing so Let Me Throw it in the Closet". This happens with everything. All the time. It's "I'm going to throw this away" and then "FINE. I'm putting it in the closet then". And by "putting it in the closet" he absolutely always means throwing it onto the floor of the closet never to be seen again. And then he gets mad when it takes me a day to clean out the closets. Because it only takes him 20 minutes to clean the whole house!

Rodolfo has so many weird habits when it comes to cleaning, but these are the most annoying because it means when I clean I have to do twice as much as he does because he doesn't know he sucks at it then he wonders why it takes me twice as long. But since we are talking about his weird habits ... let's get in to one more:

Rodolfo's mother once told him his head smells bad. This is not true. I know this not just because I sleep next to him every night, but also because she once said the same thing about Caitlyn when she was a baby. That's BABYSMELL lady. And it could be the best smell in the fucking WORLD. Weirdo. Anyway. So he has this paranoia about his head smelling bad, so he obsessively washes his entire head. Like multiple times a day. He will not leave the house, EVER, unless he has washed his entire head with soap, even if he took a shower an hour before. Note that I did not say shampoo. And he wonders why he has dry skin.

Anyway. That is all. Just making fun of my husband today.

12 comments:

Angie said...

Might I suggest telling him that he either stops helping and lets you do things your way or he does it all himself and you follow him around with a bottle of bleach. Orrrr since he's paranoid about head smell, just tell him you notice that the bathroom smells like his head. :D

Jaclyn said...

BEST. SUGGESTION. EVER. I'm going to tell him EVERYTHING smells like his head now.

Unknown said...

Your old bedroom smelled like fucking bong water and you didn't have a bong.

Anonymous said...

Wait. He won't LET YOU buy a mop? Oh Jaclyn, do you need an intervention? Are you tied to a chair in the kitchen at this very moment? Go. buy. a. fucking. mop. And use it. On his head, if he gets in your way. Then you can talk about his head smelling bad!

And I like Angie's suggestion, either you do it your way, or he does it. Tell him to get out of your freaking way. You are not living in the jungle anymore.

Who says baby heads smell weird? That's just crazy talk right there!

Jen said...

Oh Sweet Jeebus, Rodolfo would lose his SHIT at my place. It's relatively clean, but cluttered as a mofo. And, like honey badger, I don't give a shit.

Mandi E. said...

Dude, I am ALL ABOUT the useful gifts. I asked my husband to buy me one of those nifty new Libman mops where you can mix up your own cleaning solution for our anniversary and he laughed at me. Apparently, I will take my shiny baubles and like them.

I second Misty's suggestion, with a minor correction. If he says anything about the new mop in the house, stick it in his rear iris, and let him mop the house while he wanders around.

Also, your captcha just called me a miscreant. It's not wrong.

Jaclyn said...

@Nadine- that's because of the beer bottles that were in there for a year.

@Misty- the point is that I don't WANT to mop. I just don't care enough to buy a mop on my own and whenever we are together and I suggest buying one he tells me it's a waste of money. He did this with an ironing board too. We ironed on our bed until 2 months ago when I threatened to divorce him in Target unless we got one.

@Jen- I don't know why he's such a little bitch boy about it. Also, I noticed I can apparently make racist comments as often as I'd like and none of your white asses are ever going to question me. If you aren't married to brown, you must pretend to be offended. This is white people law.

@Mandi- Every gift I have ever gotten from my husband has been electronics. If I even suggest anything that is not electronics, he tells me that it's a stupid idea and refuses to buy it for me. And your plan is excellent. I think it will solve another problem for me as well.

Unknown said...

do you know how beat you sound when you write shit like he won't "let" you buy a mop, or swiffer refills? bitch why do you let him tell you what you can or cannot do?

DON'T TELL ME WHAT I CAN'T DO.

YOU DON'T KNOW ME.

PS the captcha for this is "chedeg" which is a word I don't know, but I'm imagining it's a Ped-egg used to grate cheese.

Mother Knows Best Reviews said...

How many t-shirts has he ruined in this process? Isn't that more expensive than a mop?!

AbsoluteMommy said...

I could have written this for you... My husband married brown, my maiden name is Hernandez. However the joke was on him, because like you I hate to fucking clean. Now it's worse because once I get in a zone I want to be left the fuck alone. So when the kids start cleaning the toilets with their my little ponies I fucking lose my shit, cry and then blame the husband for making me a indentured, mail order, foreign bride/maid...
Ok so it's not that bad, but seriously I'll find something better to do than clean.
Check this shit, the other night he was going on and on about how he cleans the floors, bathrooms, and mows the lawn...All true, then I chimed in and said yeah, but I do all the laundry, cooking, dishwashing, and cleaning the kitchen... Then he said well that's not really cleaning... WTF? Seriously...
We fight about cleaning all the time, so much so that I lied to him and have my moms house cleaner coming today. She is so dirt cheap and she really is like indentured servant status... Like cash only... So i've been hording change like a bum trying to buy an 8ball so I can get this lady to come over!
CLEANING SUCKS but your BLOG IS AWESOME!
Lots of Love
Megan

Jaclyn said...

@Angie- I can't seem to explain that to him. He thinks he's fancy because he buys NEW Old Navy T-shirts all the damn time. He thinks he's fucking Beyonce over here, only wearing shit once.

@Megan- OMG I laughed so hard at your comment. Whenever my husband starts his "that doesn't count" bullshit, I play the uterus card big time. I housed a human being- YOUR human being for 9 long months MOTHERFUCKER. You could shirt-mop the floors for the rest of your LIFE and you wouldn't make up for that shit.

And the fact that you are hoarding cash to pay off your day laborers? God, I love you so much :)

wagthedad said...

I think your husband should just earn more money and hire a cleaning lady. Satisfaction all around. Also he should buy a Swiffer. That's like half-mop, half his contraption with the T-shirt. Nobody loses face, and you get your mop.