The Conspiracy

Nancy ♦ July 16, 2014 ♦ 7 Comments

Summer re-run: Here’s a reprise from when I first started blogging. But I wasn’t doing illustrations back then, so at least the drawing is new.

THE CONSPIRACY

I have a theory for everything.  Some of my theories are what my family calls “out there”, but I have one theory that has abundant evidence supporting it.

I believe that when a boy reaches a certain age, (probably when he discovers his best friend/body part), his father sits him down for a serious and confidential discussion.

It goes like this:

Pretty soon girls will come into your life. And eventually you will marry.

When you get married, your wife’s expectations will be very high. So you need to know the secret of lowering her expectations- a secret  passed down from father to son for generations.

When your wife asks you to do something, you don’t argue. You say ‘Sure, Honey’.  But then you screw it up so badly she will never ask you again.

Here are some examples:

Laundry:  Red shirt in with the whites.

Vacuuming:  Suck up the cat toys.

Cooking:   Two words – smoke detector.

Cleaning the Toilet:  gritty cleanser on the seat.

Changing diapers – you don’t need any hints on this.  You will mess this up.  Don’t show any improvement.

If you are okay with looking completely incompetent, you can even go all the way to loading the dishwasher and watering the plants.

Son, just lower the expectations.  Screw it up and you are off the hook.  For ever.

There are a few chores that do not apply:

Taking out the garbage.  This is a man’s job. Folklore has it that in the nineteenth century a man tried to get out of this duty by dropping the garbage.  But it was a horrible mess, and his wife made him pick it up.   So just do it.  However, I don’t mean, ‘just do it’ – like literally – let your wife ask you at least three times.

Mowing the lawn.  This is a man’s job.  It entails equipment, and that’s fun.

Barbecue –  this entails fire and lighter fluid, and that’s fun.

Car maintenance – you get to buy tools.

That’s it, son.  Follow this advice and you will get through marriage relatively painlessly.

Oh, one more thing –   NEVER EVER say, ‘What did you do to your hair?‘