girl jobs-boy jobs

Volume XI
Issue 5
May 2008

What Do You Mean,
'It's a Girl Job'?
By M. Hutton
Reality Reporter

It's time to get back to the task of living. Unfortunately, that line has been blurred and we find ourselves unsure of how to get back to what was normal before September 11. Is it okay to wish that the worst the nightly news had to offer us was a protest over the passing of a bill? Does it show a lack of patriotism if you choose to watch an old I Love Lucy rerun, rather than participate in the latest September 11 fundraiser? Is it time to laugh again and look at the more mundane, yet everyday peculiar habits of day-to-day living?

We have to. That's the reality. We just have to. We need to laugh again and let those crazy old laugh-so-hard-till-we-cry-tears come flowing out. They're as much a part of us as the tears that we shed on September 11 and the days to follow. We need the cleansing tears of laughter to put our world back on its axis. So we return to the Globe-Guardian and hope you take our observations on life, politics, love and the unbelievable bizarre in the vein that they are intended. We just need to laugh.

My significant other and I have recently stumbled onto a possible snag in our otherwise harmonious relationship. I realize that we agree on most things not because we're boilerplates of one another. No, we agree on most things right now because we don't have a long enough history to dredge into most disagreements. We still laugh at one another's shortcomings and find some of those little pet peeve things rather cute. However, we have
tripped over one major crack in our relationship sidewalk.

We have joked back and forth about what are "girl" jobs and what are "boy" jobs. Mostly, they are things that one or the other of us is good at, so we've labeled them gender specific jobs. For instance, I like to cook food that tastes good. He, on the other hand, likes to cook food from packages, jars or in other frightening circumstances, recipes that he's made up in his head. In other words, he likes to cook food that does not taste good.

Between us, we've decided that cooking is a girl job mostly because my food preparations
are edible. His are scary that have combined food groups that should never, repeat never, be combined. Here's an example. One Friday night early in our relationship I arrived at his house with a raging hunger. He was working so I decided to poke my nose into the refrigerator to see what he might have to snack on. Sitting right before my eyes were two humungous meatloaves. The color looked good. The texture appeared exquisite.

In my state of food depravation, I brazenly chopped off an inch thick piece of meatloaf and slipped it between two waiting pieces of buttered homemade bread. My mouth was close to watering as I slid my teeth through my sandwich creation anticipating salivary satisfaction. I mean how could you screw up meatloaf, right?

Wrong. Once my unwary bite was inside my mouth and bouncing across my taste buds, I quickly learned that there were foreign materials inside that harmless looking meatloaf. The white flecks in the texture were not the breadcrumbs that I expected. They were shredded potatoes. The glistening red glaze on top of the meatloaf wasn't the ketchup that I expected. No, it was spicy barbecue sauce. I mean I haven't tasted meatloaf that nasty since my son prepared a meatloaf when he was in his early teens with no other ingredients than hamburger.

He has a list of things that he's already determined that will be my "girl" jobs when we combine households. I hope you're sitting down as you read this, as these tasks are really groundbreakers. Yeah. The list of duties that I will absorb includes dusting, vacuuming, mopping, dish washing, laundry and bathroom cleaning. Wow, since these fun things sure have a short learning curve since I already do them, won't I enjoy continuing the performing of these life-rewarding chores.

He has determined what will fall onto his plate to even the score. This will include light bulb changing, jar opening, bird feeder filling, garbage removing and an occasional chore involving some type of ladder climbing. I can see where our lists are damn near parallel in time and effort. The difference is that he will do his once every blue moon with a curse word ready on the edge of his tongue, a beer in his hand and a sense of urgency not experienced since that tortoise raced the hare across that street.

Okay, so maybe I under exaggerated his list, but trust me folks. His list is a weekend list and mine is a day-to-day list. I think what I've fallen into here is a traditional relationship with a good old boy who believes that women have a stronger inclination in domestic areas and men have stronger inclinations in mechanical or fix it areas.

I'll admit it. I don't want him in my kitchen and if the price I have to pay to keep him out is to do household chores, so be it. I also don't want to have to go into his shed or fix the flapper on the toilet or cut the lawn.

Oh my God, did I just build my own boy chores and girl chores list? Heaven help me. I think we just agreed.

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