Sometimes it is good to be married to a perfectionist, sometimes not so much.
In my marriage, it is the little woman who is the perfectionist.
When we were first married, household chores had to be done a certain way – the perfect way.
The bed could not have a single wrinkle in it or the world would stop rotating and we would be responsible for the destruction of the entire planet.
So I made sure the bed had nary a wrinkle, or I should say I was persuaded to make sure the bed did not have a single wrinkle on it.
Before I wed, I hardly ever even made the bed. Why bother? It was just going to get all messed up again in a few hours. Men, are you with me on this one?
But, to maintain a peaceful and harmonious relationship I made a wrinkle-free bed every morning.
However, as the years rolled on, the Missus mellowed out a lot and while still a perfectionist, she has accepted that I am not. It was either accept the things she can not change, or go crazy so she chose the former.
The good part about being married to a perfectionist is I do not have to do laundry.
My beloved has her own system, style and way of doing laundry and my inferior man method of cleaning clothes simply will not cut it. I am OK with that actually.
The first area I messed up in is the sorting. I figured colours with colours, whites with whites and darks with darks – simple.
Not according to my wife. There is apparently a whole spectrum of sub-colours I did not know about. Some sub-colours could be mixed with other colours in the wash, but certain ones could never be mixed and had to be with their own kind.
She tried explaining it to me a few times, but all I saw was whites, colours and darks. Eventually she gave up and declared she would do the sorting herself.
She also has her own system for washing clothes, with certain cleaning agents being used for certain types, colours (and sub-colours). Some clothes received special cleansing additives, some did not.
Once again, my man brain had a much different approach: put the clothes in the wash machine, pour in some detergent, add a little fabric softener, turn the dial to wash and viola, you are done phase two of the three-phase cleaning process.
I had already been banned from phase 1 – sorting - and was soon exiled from the laundry room for phase two. What would happen when phase 3 rolled around. I bet you can figure it out.
I would just take the clothes from the washer, put them in the dryer, turn the little dial thingy on that machine and walk away – viola, done.
Guess again.
It would seem certain things can be dried in the machine, but other items have to be hung up to dry. I did not know this and my man brain had a hard time figuring out what went where and why so once again, I was sent into laundry exile.
Hmmm, that means I do not have to do any sorting, washing or drying. Works for me. Score one for the non-perfectionist.
I could fold clothes, however, and seeing as how the Missus did all the sorting, washing and drying, it was largely my job to do the folding.
It was pretty hard to screw this up as there was really no sorting to be done and she did not really care how I folded the clothes as long as they were folded.
With one exception – socks. I really did not care if the socks were a perfect matching pair- who does? My wife, that's who, so she decided she will take care of the socks if I fold everything else.
Sounds good to me, viva la perfectionism. It's just a shame she is not the same way when it comes to vacuuming.
copyright 2014, Darren Handschuh
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