Every Dirty Job

We got a lot accomplished at the herewegoagain home today. By "we", I mean...mr. herewegoagain. I might have posted this before, but there is nothing I like better than to watch other people work. I truly was born in the wrong era and wrong social class. I would have been very happy as British royalty, sitting and watching some old gardener named "Hill" trim hedges, while another servant (possibly Molly?) brought me tea.

Sigh.

The next best thing is giving mr. herewegoagain a short list of "honey do's". And then having him DO them. Sigh. Happiness.

Of course, they are always the very ickiest of jobs. (Otherwise, I would knock them out by my little lonesome, of course.) For instance, today was "clean the shower drain" day. DH quietly, grimly, put on his rattiest of clothes. He took gloves and cleansers in there and shut the door. Several minutes later (during which I happily cruised the internet while calling out interesting tidbits to him), he even more grimly emerged. "There is a lot of hair in that drain", he grumbled. I was just about to blame the male-with-thinning-pate who lives in our house when he held up his hand, "Before you say anything, let me just tell you, I don't HAVE that much hair to lose". Point taken. However, it wasn't MY hair. I make it a point never to lose hair anywhere, except sometimes in my cooking, at which point I ALWAYS blame the dog(s)....

It really is a horrible job and kudos to him for not only clearing the drain but nicely cleaning the whole bathroom while he was at it. I am NOT one of those housewives who takes umbrage when someone else cleans up. I take great delight and joy in it and even applaud when they are through.

The most horrible of his jobs, the one that is a yardstick for all future clean-ups, occurred several years ago. We were living in town, and had actual trash pickup with an actual little rolling dumpster that was all ours (which would be a great luxury out here in the sticks, but I digress....). Rowdy son had "somehow" managed to break his beanbag chair. By "somehow", I think leaping into it from rather high heights might have had something to do with it. I tossed it into my private rolling little dumpster thing-y and thought no more of it. Three weeks later, DH came running into the house, looking, I thought, a little green around the gills. Apparently, the trash truck had not actually emptied the beanbag out of the container, and for three weeks all sorts of trash had sifted around it, under it, and on it. It was now crawling with maggots. It was pretty darn, awesomely, beyond speech...GROSS.

My manly man did what he had to do. After all, I have small children to watch and meals to make (which he wouldn't be able to eat if he knew I had cleaned out that mess). The kids and I watched from the window as he attacked the situation with gloves and bleach, and I might not be remembering this right...but there seems to have been a bandana around his nose and mouth. I DO remember that the skies opened up and rain poured on him for most of that little chore, which just added to his misery. I DO remember making him hot chocolate after he finished and had grabbed a 60 minute shower. I think that's when I first heard, mumbled under his breath..."every dirty job.....".

But no matter, it had been cleaned as only he can clean. Then, with our sparkling rolling dumpster thing-y out at the curb, he put the offending bean bag chair NEXT to it. There, job done.

Fifteen minutes later, a car screeched to a halt. Some guys jumped out, grabbed the maggot-ridden beanbag chair, put it in their trunk and raced off before we could run out and holler "Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo".

I wonder if they now have a blog where they reminisce about the "great looking bean bag chair" they got that day.....