Imagine, if you will, that you are a young professional woman. Through your profession you meet a man, a well dressed, well-groomed man. You fall for each other, date, and as people are wont to do, you move in together.
So fine, so rosy.
Imagine then, again if you will, in a short space of time, this charming man reveals himself to be Wayne Slob. He cuts his toenails in the kitchen, he leaves the toilet seat up, he leaves cups everywhere. He turns from sexy right, to an intolerable and unhygienic wrong. You begin to question whether you find him sexy any longer, possibly while removing a toe nail clipping from your carefully Nana knitted cereal.
What to do!? What to do?!
Why of course! Write to Rosanna Davidson!
Dear Rosanna, what to do about Wayne?
Now me, I’m old school. Were I to discover I lived with a person who had full use of his limbs, was capable of feeding himself, but remained a lazy dirty slob I might take a number of actions. I might, A) come to some arrangement whereby the housework comes under my remit but only if all cooking chores are undertaken by him. Or B) yell all the time, making myself hoarse and him wonder what kind of scary harpy he had attached himself too, or C) move into separate accommodation.
But dag nabbit I had forgotten to take into account option D) the ‘sexy house work’ routine!
For verily what woman does not consider dressing in a french maid’s outfit while bleaching out the bath? Who does not automatically ponder ‘now where is my latex catsuit?’ while emptying the rancid kitchen bin that you’ve both been playing Jenga with for over a week? Need to strip the beds? Strip yourself first foxy mama! Litter trays starting to hum? Jiggle those boobie pasties and drop your bootie on down while you scatter the low odor wood pellets, jiggle it, jiggle it, he might be watching from his place on the sofa. Now sing, SING my pretties, let the Dyson lift you higher! Soar on the fumes of anti-bacterial spray! ‘I believe can fly, wooooo I believe I can touch my thigh,’ no wait…oh, getting dizzy from wearing my thigh high leather boots on the landing. Say, I wonder whatever happened to Shake ‘n Vac…
Finally (!) when all of this sexy cleaning is done, you can lie on your freshly laundered rubber sheets, glare at the mirror screwed into the ceiling over your bed ( is that a smudge?) and think back to a time when you used to be an adult and wonder where it all went horribly wrong.
Anthea McTeirnan
Croí na Duibhlinn
Aoife Barry
Aoife McLysaght
Arlene Hunt
Attracta McCarthy-McKenna
clairehennessy
Ann Cronin
Amanda Brown
Eleanor Fitzsimons
Edel Coffey
Anna Carey
Lauren Murphy
Jennie Ridyard
Jude Leavy
Hazel Katherine Larkin
Léan Ní Chuilleanáin
Leigh
Lisa McInerney
Laura Slattery
Maman Poulet
Megan McGurk
Clare Kleinedler
Molly
Rosita Boland
Catherine Crichton
Sinéad Gleeson
sarahefranklin
siobhandowling
Susan Daly
theantiroom
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
Thanks Arlene, you’ve given me a good laugh on a grey Wednesday.
I think another useful and perhaps more everyday tip is to invest in a pair of those rubber gloves trimmed with offcuts of marabou feather boa.
Or these GlamGloves http://www.rainbowprincess.co.uk/washing-up-gloves—glamorous-with-jewels-731-p.asp – because you CAN feel sexy while washing up, and you ought to. In fact, this pair will take you straight from kitchen sink to the office party, simply add a slick of lipgloss and some statement earrings.
Statement earrings that can DOUBLE as sexy clothes pegs!
* twirls through office on a high from huffing Pledge*
Giggled through this.
But…what’s the problem?
I ONLY clean the house in my French Maid’s outfit?
Isn’t that what you all do?!
And my fiance wears his thong cleaning the windows?
I think I’m missing something here!
And think of how your own romantic life will be enhanced as your boyfriend dons the Marigold and gets down to business with the toilet duck. Lord, sure the two of you will get nothing done.
Is it possible to go on a day-trip to Planet Rosanna?
Wish I hadn’t read this comment while drinking tea because the words “gets down to business with the toilet duck” nearly made me spit it all over my keyboard. Memo to self: do not read funny comments while drinking.
In Los Angeles there are actual professional maid services where both women and men come to your home, dressed in only a thong and/or skimpy lingere and clean your house, top to bottom. No pun intended.
They have the weather for it! Could you imagine that here? Think of the goosebumps.
Did that man clip his own toe-nails? What a bloody metrosexual. The rule is, mommy cuts your toe nails until her arthritis forces you to find a mommy surrogate, or ‘life parrner’ to use the modern vernacular. Cut my own toe-nails? If God had intended me to cut my own toe-nails he wouldn’t have put them so far away.
Cut? Surely real men just chew them off??
Eeeuuhh. Toe hair!!
Heh. Good solid fibre!
Gosh, it’s so hard to motivate men to be adults, though. One must very gently ease them into it. Cajole. Nibble. Maybe with a firm spanking, if it comes to it.
It’s often surprising how much sexism is based on people having a really, *really* low opinion of men.
Like all those washing-powder ads. “Look at this eejit man, sure he can barely read a care label, the gobshite! Useless!”
Apart from the Ariel man. He does his own washing and still has time to play football.
Oh Arlene, you make me laugh like a (blocked!) drain.
My take on housework is if ya wanted a maid, you should have hired one because it would have been cheaper. Less fulfilling, but certainly cheaper. I’m here as your partner, your friend, your witness, your lover, your playmate, your workmate, your soulmate, your companion, the person who’s gonna wipe your butt should you ever be rendered incontinent and who’ll liquefy your food and feed it to you through a straw should that be called for, but pick up your toenails? Nope. And nor would I expect anyone else to pick up mine.
Andrew and I have a fine trade on this, I will clean the bathroom and hoover and so forth if he cooks breakfast, lunch and dinner. He likes to cook, I like to eat, works out pretty good!
* pats belly*
What a hoot!
I don’t do frilly, but, yes, I do housework – and almost all of it. But I’m OK with it., because he brings in most of the cash and travels an hour each way every day to a grueling job and I work alone at home, with no kids or pets. I can find an hour a day to do a little cleaning up. He’s also tidy and considerate, or I’d resent it.
And he does all the (loathed!!!) laundry!
I don’t mind laundry, but I hate the bloomin’ hoover, but since cat and basset hair is the bane of my life I have yet to find a way to do without the wretched thing. Perhaps if I sexfully vacuum I won’t notice how annoying it is.
Yes! Exactly! I think “tidy and considerate” is the catchphrase here. What I hate is slobs who take it for granted that some other eejit will clean up after them. I won’t, just won’t.
The world would run more much more smoothly if everyone was “tidy and considerate”. Hey — I’d vote for the party that makes that its election slogan.
Having been a working mum and a stay-home mum, I know from experience that going to work is much more fulfilling than the daily drudgery of cleaning. Drudgery sucks the life out of the soul. Then it all happens again tomorrow.
Surely that article (Not Rosanna’s site – Chrome can’t load that!) is saying Equal Shares on the housework and dress up for fun while you are both cleaning.
Whereas you seem to be implying that it says women should dress up for him to watch whilst doing all the work.
Or am I misreading?
Maybe so, bookmole, but donning a French Maid’s outfit to get a grown man to pick up his toe nail clippings strikes me as pretty daft.
Doing housework irks me, I mean, I spend all day cleaning up after everyone else only to do it all again the next day. Where is the logic or fun in that? Whoa, I didn’t mean to suggest that I thought housework should be fun. But…it shouldn’t make me grimace and snarl either. So, a few months back I noticed that if I vacuum, mop, dust in a rocking pair of jeans…I feel totally great! I don’t even think about the “cleaning” part of it…just me looking great part. It makes for a happier home.:)
Makes one wonder about the real lyrics to ‘Lady in Red…’
Oh god that song, somebody always sang it on the tour buses in school, that and ‘The summer of 69″ * shudders*
Brilliant, hilarious read on a dull Thursday morning.
I clicked on the link to ‘Dear Rosanna’ and thought the advice to the second and third problems was shocking. Given her recent history, who is Rosanna Davison to give out relationship advice?
And the pocket money problem? Has Rosanna ever heard of doing some housework to earn the pocket money and not just demanding it?… Scrap that, now that we know that she enjoys playing ‘sexy maid’ dress up when cleaning I think it is best not to think about a young Rosanna doing housework for Mummy and Daddy. The less said the better!
Oh my god. Oh my god ohmygod. !!!