What moms can learn from dads

Does that leave an opening big enough to drive a garbage truck through, or what...

Looking through this mornings USA Today this evening, I came across an article with the above title. I made the mistake of reading it. Just your basic, everyday "We're not only just as good as you are, we're better in some areas" type of article. This is how it should have read.

Hearing the obvious clattering of "things not being used for their intended purpose", followed by piercing cries of pain, moms always run to see if everyone is okay. "Is everyone Okay?" Dads have this inherent understanding of logical reasoning that goes something like this: if there is crying involved, everyone is very likely still alive, and we wait for the survivors to find us and provide a report. I don't believe that I've ever had to go back and clean up spilled blood after awaiting the news.

If you can close the lid, the washing machine is not overfilled.

But the whole thing with "house work" is somewhat beyond our comprehension. The article mentioned that SAHM's (Stay At Home Moms) on average spent 1.61 hours per day on housework and 1.41 hours per day on food prep and clean-up. SAHD's (I think you can figure that one out on your own): .42 and .64 respectively. What I want to know is who in the hell counts the hours that they do either of these things! It's bad enough that we have to do them at all. I don't want to know how much time I wasted on their behalf.

Yes, I said waste. Some things are required in life. Food. Water. Bombay Saffire Extra Dry Martinis with bleu-cheese stuffed olives. (Gorgonzola will do in a pinch.) I don't remember seeing dusting on the list.

Some of you long-time readers have seen a picture or two of my office posted on the pages of this blog. It is not neat. Actually, I probably shouldn't tell you this, but it is not clean. We have a cleaning service that comes by once a week on Wednesday mornings. They know not to go into my office. It's just better that way. I don't have dust bunnies, dust rabbits, or any other variety of dust rodent. I have dust elephants. Seriously kick-ass dust elephants. I've learned to stay out of their way and leave them alone.

Everybody living in harmony.

Except Joplin.

Joplin is our cat, for those of you that didn't know. Joplin's litter box is in the garage, which is where Joplin sleeps at night. For those of you that think that this might be cruel, Joplin would wake us up very early in the morning doing something that happened so long ago I don't think any of us remember what the infraction was. But he did it on a regular enough basis that he got banished to the garage at night. Which is where the aforementioned litter box resides.

Because the litter box resides in the garage, it occasionally suffers from the "out of sight, out of mind" mindset. Not to throw Theresa under the bus, but this happens more often when I am traveling than when I am home. (Hey... you try to manage a full-time job, three kids in school, and an online business that sucks almost every other available moment from your life and see how well you do at emptying the cat box!)

When Joplin's box suffers from inattention, Joplin gets pissed (duh) and has (rarely) been known to go into my office and crap on my training materials that are scattered on the floor. See! Floor protectors! That's a good thing! (Note to self: take Joplin with me next time I go to a Train-the-Trainer session.)

I'm sure there is probably plenty more that moms can learn from dads, but perhaps we'll save those for another time. I think I saw Theresa going into the garage to get something to throw at me. Good thing I'm not home.