This post is for the guys. We are not making any New Year's resolutions here. Real men don't make resolutions; they don't eat quiche, and they don't carry "man bags." Okay, maybe a really good quiche once in a while, but definitely no purses, no matter what they call them. Real men know who they are and always do what's best so resolutions would be pointless. You can't improve on perfection.
Contrary to some opinion, real men are in touch with their "feminine side" though. I came to this conclusion recently with a modicum of humble contrition. The other day I walked into the kitchen to pour myself another cup of coffee and "noticed" the sparkling clean sink. I "realized" it looked really good nestled in the uncluttered and crumbless counter. When it hit me that I was admiring something as mundane as a clean sink, it also hit me that I had felt compelled to clean said sink earlier that morning after removing the dirty dishes and daily detritus from the surrounding surfaces. It occurred to me that I had no recollection of having such feelings before.
Almost a year ago my wife fell at work and has been on the DL ever since. During her time on the bench, I pitched in a little more than usual with housework. Actually, I started with the increased innings back when my trucking career went kaput following the demise of Michigan's auto industry. I had been AWOL for almost twelve years, being on the road four or five nights every week. Even though she worked full time as a teacher, she still did the lion's share of the housework. (We might have to rethink using "lion's share" given the performance of a certain Detroit sports franchise.)
Now I walk toward the living room and the dust bunnies and crumbs on the hardwood (that seem to be manufactured endlessly) fairly shout at me in the reflected light of the front windows. That moves me to pull out the electric sweeper and drag it around the room. That process ends with a trip to the laundry room to empty the sweeper and I find the cat's litter box is filled with clumps and turds. Several years ago I bought my wife (it's her cat) an automatic electric box cleaner, but it has died and refreshing the litter has become a manual labor. So I do it.
Only those who know me very well realize what an admission that is. I hate cats. Really. Hate. The only thing worse than having a cat in the house is having a littler box for the cat in the house. But I realize that the bending and raking and scooping to clean the box is hard on my wife's back, so it gets done less regularly than I would like. (One stipulation for allowing a cat was that I must never, never smell the litter box, ever.) So I clean the litter box occasionally.
One may wonder how a cat ever got into our house in the first place. Here's more of the "feminine side" revealed. My wife looked at me with big sad eyes when our last cat died (one of the kid's beasts) and said that it was lonely with me gone four or five days in a row and a cat would keep her company. I think she may have also intimated that a cat would surely be preferable to her finding a man to replace me, but that may just have been something I imagined. Anyway, she got her replacement cat.
My point in all this is that the resolution of my life view has sharpened of late. Living in HD, someone has said, means really noticing the little things, and after noticing them, doing something about what can be done. After forty-plus years of marriage I realize that my view of life has often resembled the look of my brother-in-law's B/W rabbit-eared 19 inch set on which we used to "watch" hockey. The conversation during the games went like, "There. I think that was the puck. Didn't somebody just skate down the ice?" Lot's of snow, if you know what I mean.
So, guys, no New Years resolutions. Just check the resolution on your world-view screen. Make sure it's set to to highest setting you have available. Living with high-def vision will allow you to "see" the holes in the defense, the openings in the outfield, whatever the metaphor. Do you have a wife? Do you love her? Got kids? Care about them? Live so the people around you see the highest resolution picture of what you think of them. It's not girly to be really clear about what matters to you.
Besides, a vacuum is a tool, right? Laundry is kind of a science project involving chemicals and a large agitating apparatus. I've discovered that the joy of the hunt can even apply to finding that one thing on the grocery list that they hide in the least likely place. It is true that unless you have a CPL you will have to leave the firearm in the car when you hunt Meijer for the turkey, but life is full of compromises. The only unacceptable compromise is the one that asks you to compromise on principle: like carrying a purse or saying I really don't hate cats.
you know pal I enter the position of house husband in 2005 and been there ever since the pay is poor but the rewards are high wash, vacuuming, cooking, shopping and the whole nine yards. you are right we can't do it as well as them, you know who, and that is to our advantage, I've been let go on most of my position sadly to say ha ha bobalu
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