Cleaning up our Act

 “My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance”

-          Erma Bombeck.

-          And His Nibs, apparently

There is trouble afoot.  The hot smell of rebellion is in the air.  For His Nibs has taken offence to the most relaxed housework regime in the world.

It started last Friday.  I informed His Nibs that since Sunday was All Ireland day, the housework would have to be completed on Saturday.  I’ve been out of the house a bit lately, seeing my relations.  This was my first full weekend in the house in five weeks.  I’m not a complete slattern, I’d been doing bits and pieces of housework as I went along. His Nibs, who’s been in the house every weekend, had been doing nothing to keep our domestic life germ free.  The house needed a massive dusting and tidy and general clean up.

I am the daughter of two GAA fanatics, and the wife of His Nibs, who has taken fanaticism to a new level.  So I know that there is no question of getting anything done on All Ireland day.  His Nibs is too excited in the morning, he runs around ringing his hurling friends, and making predictions and being unbearable.  And in the afternoon, he likes to sit in front of the television, screaming foul language and still being unbearable.

So we couldn’t leave the housework until Sunday.

The thing is, we’re supposed to go away next weekend, to a lovely little guesthouse down in Tipperary.  They have a lovely restaurant there and we like to treat ourselves to a nice dinner and an overnight every year or so.  We were going to leave our dogs in the kennels, but almost as soon as we decided to go, we both started trying to bagsy not having to drop them off.  It’s just too awful.  They cry and act as though they’re only there to be slaughtered.  Eventually His Nibs asked his lovely sister and her partner to come to our house on Saturday to mind the three of them until Sunday.  They must be as brave as lions.

His Nibs’ sister doesn’t give a flying feck about the condition of our house.  But I can’t sleep nights for worrying about what she’ll think.  I meant to get around to cleaning out the wardrobes that my sister in law will never open, and tidy up the boxroom that’s full of notebooks and pens and bits of paper, which she’ll never be in.

I have to clean the fridge before she arrives.  I’d hate her to think there’s any chance that her brother could be poisoned from eating in his own house.  There’s junk mail sitting in the postbox waiting for me to rifle through it and grumble about the environment.  And in an ideal world I’d have cleaned out the kitchen cabinets, even though they’ll probably have a takeaway.

His Nibs knows me too well.  He knew that if he started the housework last Saturday that he’d never be allowed to stop.  I’d keep adding things for him to do until he lost his will to live.

On Friday night when I told him that the housework was to be completed on Saturday, he agreed quickly enough, obviously not willing to get into an argument and ruin his Friday night.

We agreed that we would get up early on Saturday morning, and do the housework with great energy and enthusiasm.  As per our usual routine, we agreed that since he wakes up at the crack of dawn every morning, he would be responsible for waking me up for the dreary chores.

I woke up at ten thirty on Saturday morning.  Deciding that I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, I roared downstairs for coffee, and as His Nibs brought it up the stairs, I prepared to give out stink for the delay in cleaning the house.

As he walked into the room, he was wearing a very brazen face.

“I’ll throw this coffee down, good and quick, and we can get on with cleaning the house.”

“No.  I’m not doing housework today.”

“Feck off.  We have a deal.  We’re cleaning the house today.”

“I don’t care.  We’ll do it tomorrow.”

I was mystified.  We had a deal.  I knew there was no point, but I went on and on about it, and tried to cajole him into doing the housework immediately.  He was having none of it.

"Sure, you won’t be able to do it tomorrow, you’ll be watching the All Ireland”.

“A hurling match lasts seventy minutes, love.  It’ll be grand.”

“Do you think I’m a fool?  I haven’t forgotten what All Ireland day is like.  You won’t even go out for lunch.”

“Ah, I will.  There’ll be loads of time.”

Nothing I could do would move him.  He just wouldn’t do it.  He wanted to have a relaxing day on Saturday, it seems, to prepare for All Ireland day.  Since that would be a busy day anyway, he might as well do the housework on Sunday morning.

I hate housework.  I hate it with a passion.  Every second I spend cleaning or ironing or hoovering, there is a fiery poison of resentment burning within me.  So I wasn’t willing to do everything on my own.  Especially considering that I was still living in a fantasy world where “doing the housework” would involve cleaning out every cupboard and washing the skirting boards. I’m such a deluded eejit.  I allowed myself to be talked into delaying the plan for twenty-four hours.  It never takes much to talk me into not doing housework.

God be with the halcyon days when we had a cleaner.  After our last cleaner gave up, suffering from exhaustion, I assume, His Nibs announced that we would not be getting a new one, that we needed to save some money and that from now on we would do it all ourselves.  When I think about how easily I gave in, I want to kick myself senseless.

The same arrangement was made.  His Nibs would wake me on Sunday morning, and the work would begin good and early.  We would finish in time to go to lunch.

Again, I was not woken on Sunday morning.  His Nibs, on realising I was conscious, roared up that he’d make coffee, but I had to come downstairs to drink it.  On my way down the stairs, I met him on his way up.  I assumed he was off for a shower.  Or maybe to get the laundry basket.  Or even do a bit of tidying or dusting.  I went to the kitchen and had my coffee. 

He never came back.

I went upstairs.  He was in bed, ready for a nap.  I became furious, of course.  I started shouting, to no effect.

He announced that he’d once again been up from six in the morning, and he needed a nap before he could undertake his domestic duties.  It was fine, he promised.  He’d sleep for an hour, clean, then have a late lunch.  He wouldn’t be watching the match live anyway, he told me.  He’d tape it, and skip all the adverts.  Nothing I did would get him out of the fecking bed.  I did everything he usually does to me on a weekday morning.  I roared and shouted, I ran away with the duvet.  I set the dogs on him.  Of course they just cuddled up to him and made him nice and cosy, despite the lack of duvet.  He wouldn’t move. 

He slept for two solid hours.  I didn’t even notice at the time, because I was doing the fecking ironing.  I was swearing under my breath so much that I didn’t even feel the time passing.  Then he strolled down the stairs and announced he was hungry.  And after he was fed, he announced that he had to watch the match live, or all his hurling friends would be ringing him and telling him the outcome.  They’d ruin it for him.

It was only when he said this that I acknowledged that open lies had been told to fool me into letting him away with the housework.  I was beside myself.  I was reduced to singing so loud over his hurling match.  His Nibs can’t bear it when I sing.  I don’t know why.

Eventually he dragged his grumpy carcass around the house, hauling the hoover behind him, with much drama.  While I was scrubbing the kitchen and dusting and putting away laundry and doing various other things, he got as far as the stairs before he declared that he felt sick.  This was ignored.  So he hoovered.  But that was it.  He didn’t clean the bathrooms.  He didn’t even wash the floors.

I’ve had to tell him that we can’t go away next weekend.  There’s no way I can let anyone into the house, the state of the place.