know it all

Looking back, I’m actually astonished my mother cooked and cleaned for days, and my father’s only task was to dress himself, something he did daily. This frightens me. When I get married, I don’t care who makes the bacon, we’re both making the goddamn bacon-wrapped shrimp with rosemary and stilton hors d’oeuvres for our guests. I cannot stand men who watch football while the women load the dishwasher. What the fcuk is that? We all eat; we’ve all got a sudden case of food coma and want to lie down.  And the men do.  They recline and watch television while the women scrape plates and make coffee.  I’m sorry, never ever happening in my house. And while that sounds repulsive to every man out there, simply put: I. Don’t. Give. A. McFuck. I might not know it all, but I know I’d rather stay single than be married to a man who watches me slave and insists I enjoy it… unless we’re in bed. Then it’s welcome.

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COMMENTS:

  1. Bravo on your deft handling of the critics to your previous post, "Japs;" I should have kept my defense of your writing to myself.

    We actually had spanokopita and tyropita yesterday on our late Thanksgiving dinner menu on account of my being out of town on Thursday. Your post elicits not just comparable memories but the very same sensations, especially those involving smells. Memories can often induce the same reaction as the actual stimuli. The smell of the cedar chest and the color and feel of the velvet were soothing, and the memories of them equally so.

    Most of all, the post reminded me of Mother's Day, and that often one's mother and then one's wife are underappreciated. Courtesy of Stephanie, instead of being on the second Sunday in May, a few guilt-stricken readers–I am one of them–will be celebrating Mother's Day tomorrow.

  2. If I didn't know that you were only using figures of speech, one would think you are attacking all groups of people today. First JAPs, now the Irish with the McFuck comment.

    Did something bad happen this weekend that we should all know about or is this the real you?

  3. oh my god, this strikes SO close to home. i'm southern, so the tendency for the men to leave the table here and go lie around like dogs is even more noticeable. i remember telling my mother when i was a little girl that i was glad i was a member of this family so there was no danger of me ever marrying one of them. i love my father and i love my brother but the idea of being involved in a relationship with someone that would rather have a maid than a mate is revolting to me. thank god my mother had some balls or she would've wound up like my grandmother (paternal)…..married 70 years to someone she despises who never did anything but screw other women and lie around after she fed him and their brood of children. when i first moved to nyc and noticed that "other couples" actually help each other with the cooking and the cleaning, it was a revelation. until then, i thought that unless you had a maid, you did it all baby.
    sorry for the rant, i feel so strongly about this issue that i'm 30, single, and not even looking. single is better than a lifetime of enslavement. ok, that was a bit dramatic, i admit. thanks, anyway, for bringing this up.

  4. Oh god….give it a rest. I totally agree with Plantation. Chill. People. I come from a Mcfamily and we're scottish…among many other things (dad's jewish) but besides that, when I read the post the first thing I thought was–McDonald's reference. Why does everyone always think they're being attacked, especially when EVERYONE stereotypes…it may seem wrong but its human

  5. I just saw a picture of that husband, or wasband, of yours. You think that guy had style? He wears T-shirts under button downs. HAHAHAHAHHAHA.

    I don't care how much money this guy has, how smart he is, how many women love him, how many Brioni suits or Valentino ties he wears – he still has the style of a 45 year old Asian man on a golf course.

    Like the saying goes: "You can put the guy in Italian style, but you can't put the Italian style in the guy."

  6. About the pajamas: I have a 27 year old friend whose pajamas, I'm fairly certain, still have feet. How many years did you have them? (just so I understand the story better, because the concept of a five year old windexing and a younger sister playing with cutlery was a surprise).

  7. Hmm. When I was married, and the holidays came my wife, loved entertaining. She wanted to make sure everything was just right. The only responsibility I had was to make sure there was enough money for the meal, get last minute items at the store, serve the drinks and to help clean up once the meal was served and also after the company had left. My attitude was that seemed fair, because we had a housekeeper who helped keep the house clean M-W-F and the wife didn't have a heck of alot to do all week anyway. Her options were to go to the gym, jogging along the Long Island Sound, play tennis, play golf at the club, go shopping, using the cash I had given her or use the credit cards, or simply have lunch with girls.
    She didn't work and was semi-retired other than the kids who were in school and her only obligation was to make sure the kids were taken care of. She was an excellent mother and always took care of her kids. Me, on the other hand was working 5 1/2 days a week from 8 – 5:30pm and 1/2 day on Saturday, so in this case it is different from the scenario you are laying out. When both people work the responsibility should be shared; but, when one is semi-retired a little hard work makes one appreciate how good they have it in life.
    I would have gladly traded with her in a heart beat.

  8. I don't know about stephanie but, as far as i'm concerned, don sounds pretty good in my book. a hamptons wife with (apparently) limitless credit cards, a maid, and a husband who helps clean up and prepare for parties is not exactly what i was complaining about.

  9. I don't know how I lucked out, but my hubby & I have a deal– I cook, he cleans. (And honestly, since I am a very messy cook, I think I have the easy part!! I hate doing dishes!) On those ocassions when he cooks (he makes a mean spagetti) cause I am not feeling well or something, I'll clean (if I'm really sick, he does it all). It's the deal.

    One person doing everything in the kitchen is SO UNFAIR!! Every now and then I'll do both, but it's a treat, and we always always say "thank you" to each other for whatever task, even if it's something we do every day. I'm not saying this to brag, but to say this is an idea I have never seen anyone else use– treating your spouse as though they are doing you a favor, *every single time.* Even so-called enlightened couples still do this thing you talk about– she is in the kitchen all day and he watches football. Gah! Disgusting!

    My unsolicited advice: Talk about it in advance, get it out there. It works great for us, and it's very rare that one of us gets our feelings hurt (although it has happened– usually in party-planning mode where things get crazy).

  10. Oh my god. The McFuck comment is not related to the Irish or the Scottish at all. It's a statement about freakin' McDonald's and the idea of "generic" items. People use Mc all the time to connote McStupid stuff or McWriters or McActors. It's the idea of over blank-billion served. It has nothing to do with race, anymore than you could say McDonald's is authentic Irish food.

    People, try a course on reading comprehension, metaphor, and irony, and maybe, if you can get all of those, try satire. Clearly, you're just not getting it. Please try to find something real to critique and stop throwing fake cries of "racist" out there.

    It reminds me a little of the bit in Monty Python's Life of Brian where the crowd starts criticizing him "Oh, now he's going on against the Lilies…."

  11. I'm sorry but isn't Mc a Scottish prefix not Irish??? I agree with one of the post re JAPs, if you don't like what you read read something else. Then the rest of us who read Stephanie's blogs will have lower blood pressure from not reading your crap!

  12. Mel….Mc and Mac prefixes can also be Irish. What most people don't know is that many of the Irish left Ireland during the potato famine and moved to Scotland…while others moved to the United States.

  13. Ok, Tom, so maybe some Mcs did come from Ireland back in the day but over here in the UK we tend to associate Mc names with the scots and o' names with the Irish. But as you Americans would say …whatever!

  14. Tom, with respect to the annoying comments or verbal graffiti (see Dr. Bob, NED….), it would be desirable to have beside each comment a box you would be able to check off or a little button which you would be able to click to indicate that you no longer want to see a particular comment now or on subsequent visits to the blog. Alternatively, you could have people rank comments (possibly to the point of deletion), but that would be a double-edged sword that could stifle the free exchange of thoughts.

    It would not be hard to implement this personalized deletion feature with the cooperation of the server and cookies, but it can be done without the server's cooperation. Alternatively, you can actually write your own interface for this and other blogs to allow you to do this, but it's quite a bit of work. An additional feature would be to allow control freaks to correct misspellings and grammatical errors in comments if they so desire. Just kidding.

    I very much enjoy reading your comments, and when you don't post, I wonder what has happened to you.

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