I have visited this well before.
the dishwasher is broken
which we kept under the sink
i tried starting it but it makes that
thwumpa-thwumpa sound
i have left the dishes in the sink
which you were probably hoping
to use for dinner
i would wash them myself but
they never seem to get as clean
as when you do them
probably because i do a purposefully half-hearted job of scrubbing
in order to get you
to do it
without asking me
for help
-wcw
we are out of toilet paper
but instead of buying more
i plan on tearing
strips
of paper towels
and laying them carefully over the old toilet paper roll
(which i will not throw away)
i will do this indefinitely
until you buy more toilet paper
-wcw
i have hit START on the clothes in the dryer
which were already finished drying
but which
i did not wish to fold
this way
when you get home
it will sound like they have just finished drying
and you will be the one to fold them
-wcw
i have intentionally lowered my standard of living
so that when you say things like
“this place is a mess”
rather than acknowledge your implicit request
for acknowledgement
and respect
and help
i can simply grunt
half-heartedly
neither agreeing
nor disagreeing
and not having
to do anything
knowing that you will do the work necessary to make yourself happy
-wcw
Tags: chores, poetry, pull your own weight, william carlos williams
Related Posts
I can’t tell if this is “Asshole Roommate Poetry” or another edition in Mallory’s famed “Woe, I am a man and cannot be expected to do humble chores, I am a special snowflake among all humanity for loathing housework, my wife is simply so much better at it because our cavemen ancestors something something [head explodes]”
Here I shall boast about my husband because I do all the cooking and he washes all the dishes. All of them. I have not washed a dish in YEARS except when he is gone away and it is GLORIOUS. He doesn’t whine or complain, just does it, better than I do, and he gets all excited when he finds a new dishwashing implement (like our self-dispensing soap brush).
We have the same arrangement in my household–I cook, my husband does the dishes. He often does the dishes even when he is the one who cooks, or when we’ve just ordered a pizza. He also considers himself a feminist and fully admits to his white male privilege, so when I hear about husbands who never do chores and are in general assholes, I feel like I have won the SO lottery.
Mine also does all the floors, dusting, and about half the laundry. I do my own dishes if I’m doing something special (baking, usually) but a lot of the time he does those dishes, too. I used to feel bad about sitting on the couch while he vacuums (twice weekly), but now I greatly enjoy it.
I *may* pull a variation of WCW on my husband when it comes to mopping. I absolutely loathe mopping, and tend to do a half-assed job anyway, but once I discovered that this is A Thing that he is oddly particular about, my mopping skills went even further downhill, and consequently, I have only done about 10% of the mopping during our entire marriage. I more than make up for it with other tedious chores, but he can have that one.
I haven’t mopped since we moved in together. Not that I really mopped before that, but now I definitely don’t. Now he’s always talking about new kinds of mops he’d like to buy. I say, sure, get whatever kind of mop you want! It makes me seem generous instead of sneaky.
(I’ve also given up pretty much all other chores since I got pregnant a year and a half ago. It’s glorious. I do cook once a week or so, and wash some laundry (but that doesn’t count as a chore until it’s time to put it away (I just wear it straight from the basket; he is not quite so kind as to put away my laundry…)).)
Please consider getting him some kind of fancy, top-of-the-line mop for Christmas next year.
Twice WEEKLY? Dear Jiminy Cricket, [respectful term for person of unknown gender on the Internet], you’ve found a unicorn! I commend you on your staggering powers of magic!
My boyfriend vacuums twice a week as well. The only problem with this is that if he is unable to do so (due to his insanely busy work schedule) he will complain incessantly about how dirty the floors are.
Husband dish-washing club high five! Mine won’t let me do the dishes because I’m genuinely terrible at doing them. I actually try (admittedly, not *that* hard) and I’m still terrible.
dirtbag poets?
I love my husband dearly (obviously) and he’s about three shades too feminist to pull any of this, but also about two shades of conscientious away from being very helpful around the house. We’re currently working on the concept of “if I have to be the foreman and tell you when it’s your turn to do your half of the housework, you’re not actually doing half of the housework.” He’s improving.
(It would be easier if he didn’t like to cook. But since we both cook, I can’t just pawn all the dishwashing off on him.)
Well and then you get those guys who think it’s polite or chivalrous or whatever to “let” you be in charge so everything comes out how you want it, and I’m like, if I have to think about it, you’re making me do work.
Gahhh yeah no thanks. I think it’s so important to have agreed-upon standards and both feel invested in holding to them. And to acknowledge the problematic place that both women’s and men’s assumptions that this stuff just “matters more” to women comes from.
Managing is work! In fact, it’s so much work that in the actual workplace it’s considered the sort of thing you can make an entire career out of! And get paid more than the people you are managing! I am never sure why this becomes such a difficult concept in the home.
My husband and I have actually split “deciding” and “executing” as tasks, because we are weird- so I do, say, the vacation planning, and he calls the cable guy to make them come fix things. We are both convinced that this is the best deal ever, because he gets anxious about making the “best” choice but is good about getting things done, and I am good at deciding and also at procrastinating actually acting on a decision.
We have a similar setup! (I do household chores I like, he does ones he likes and it works. Except when we get into months long stand offs about the stuff neither of us wants to touch).
If he dies before me when we’re old, I’m suddenly going to need to learn how to cook and fold laundry after decades of never touching them. I’ll need to rush into a second marriage with a much younger guy, just to find someone to handle the cooking.
IT’S ABOUT MEN
and your husband gets exactly 1/8th of a cookie
I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN. (Although I have lived with some super gross women as well, like my roommate in second year who brushed her hair and left tumbleweeds of hair all over and around the bathroom. Tons of it. On the wall in the shower, in piles on the floor. Also once she left a container of cookies for months until they were moldy hockey pucks.)
I will give him his eighth of a cookie and take the rest for myself AS IS MY DUE.
haha yes of course the worst part is that it is about men but IT IS ALSO ABOUT ME because I am that roommate (I live alone; I do not inflict my grossness on others)
Men have been projecting all their ish onto women forever, so I think a little turnabout is fair play.
Women can be gross toooooooooo! My last set of all-lady room mates all refused to ever clean the toilet (or anything else), my asking, then pleading, then nagging be damned. I moved out a year and a half ago, and it has still obviously never been cleaned since I left. I make sure to use the bathroom before I visit. It is revolting.
I live with my boyfriend and a female roommate, and the roommate is by far the grosser one. I’m just thankful that we don’t have to share a bathroom.
I can top that! My teenage sons do all of the dishes. Husband & I don’t touch the things.
Son 1 loads the dishwasher, and gets annoyed if we do it ‘wrong’ and he also wipes down all the counters etc.
Son 2 unloads the dishwasher, and gets annoyed if we do it ‘wrong’ and will rearrange the plates / bowls / mugs to fit his preordained patterns should we dare to mess them up.
I love parenting teen boys.
I don’t yet have children, but on the off-chance I ever do, TEACH ME YOUR WAYS.
Step 1: procreate with someone with OCD in hopes that his tendencies will pass on to the children
Step 2: institute a system wherein every time they DON’T do their assigned chores within 5 minutes of being asked*, they pay you $1
Step 3: sit back and wait for everything to gel
*helps not to ask unless you know they have free time – don’t ask if they’re on the way to their jobs or in the middle of homework. Also, if they are discovered to have broken my tidiness dictates – towels or socks on floor, primarily – they have to pay $1 and immediately correct the transgression, no matter how many other things they think are more important at the moment.
My sister and I tend to be somewhat messy, but our two brothers are clean freaks and it is hilarious. My 21 year old younger brother lives with two other similarly aged boys and their house is SO CLEAN. My older brother lived with me for a while and we regularly had arguments where he’d say stuff like “how am I supposed to vacuum the hallway if you just throw your purse and shit on the ground when you come home? That is no way to treat good leather!”
I love these comments, and the implication how how many Toast commenters, if they had to marry men, only chose ones who understood their rightful place in the household.
I do 90% of the dishes and 10% of the cooking but that is because my idea of a fancy dinner is pasta and red sauce. This will change when someone invents self-cleaning dishes. Any takers?
This is absolutely my dream. Cooking is great, doing the dishes is horrible.
The arrangement that works for us is I cook the food (except for any steps involving touching raw meat, he does those parts because EW), he does the dishes, he makes the coffee. I joke that I married him for his coffee making skills-he’s from the Pacific Northwest a.k.a. Coffee Heaven and knows how to make all kinds of fancy things with espresso.
I have lived with Men, I know this to be accurate poetry. So I suppose “accuracy” and “poetry” aren’t mutually exclusive concepts after all.
AAAAAUUUUUGGGHHHHHH the passive-aggresiveness just skitters down my back like a solitary beetle has been dropped down my shirt. Resulting explosion as well.
OH MY GOD MALLORY he ate the plums like ONE TIME
HE KNOWS WHAT HE DID
But you were only *probably* saving them for later. If you’d really wanted them, you should have put a little note on them, god. How was he supposed to know that you cared, like, so much about the goddamn plums, jesus christ.
He left a preemptive apology note! HE KNEW.
These are from Mallory’s upcoming book, “Poems of Male Privilege”
PLEASE let this be a thing that happens. How much to commission such a thing, Mallory? I have a real job now.
For all I know, William Carlos Williams may have lived an otherwise sterling life; but this is immaterial. I may know little to nothing of poet laureates, but I know much of horrible roommates, and Williams evokes them perfectly with his one poem about eating someone else’s plums and then gloating about it. He evokes them so perfectly that I want to punch him forever.
Yes, William, I was saving those plums for later. Because I knew I was going to have a shitty day at work, then a shitty bus ride home, and looking forward to those fucking plums was the only thing getting me through the day, asshole.
I look forward to making enough money that I can rent my entire house, and not need any roommates at all.
When I lived alone, I did things because no one else would. Now that I have a husband, I do things because otherwise it wouldn’t be fair to get mad at him for not doing the things that I don’t want to do either. Although I did snap at him like a French waiter earlier to close the window whilst I sat on the couch doing nothing. And I make requests for more tea only after he’s sat down.
Oh, is THAT why my husband has taken to asking me, every time he’s up, “Do you want some tea?”
All this time I thought he was considerate. Turns out he’s just sick of me asking him right after he sat down!
That is highly likely. But I will give him the benefit of the doubt, and say that you married a considerate one.
Somewhat tempted to try that dryer trick, except I never get home first :\.
Ergo, everything in the dryer before you get home isn’t your responsibility.
I. . . have done this. I have.
I have done
The dinner clean-up
Except, inexplicably
one lemon rind on a cutting board
Which I will leave you to deal with
After a full day of watching the baby and working while she slept.
(My husband is pretty damn good you guys and probably does not deserve my anonymous mockery on the Internet but GODDAMMIT JUST FINISH THE JOB)
(Full disclosure, his pet peeve about me is I don’t put the new toilet paper roll on the holder, so I am also a monster.)
WHY WOULD YOU NOT PUT IT ON THE HOLDER IT’S RIGHT THERE
I GOT IT OUT OF THE CLOSET AND PUT IT ON THE BACK OF THE TOILET WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT FROM ME????
Exactly! So long as no one is stranded with a poo-butt, what does it matter exactly where the paper is?
This is exactly* my perspective!
(1) It is not laziness that compels me to ignore the toilet paper holder, but rather my devotion to Objectivist principles: one must reach out and control one’s own destiny by calmly, masterfully unwinding the paper from the roll with his or her own two hands. Toilet paper holders are for those too weak to fully impose their will on ablution-related paper products.
(2) If you are unable to reach the roll that’s sitting on the back of the toilet, then the problem is not that I failed to load the new roll but rather that you have tiny tyrannosaur arms, for which I cannot reasonably be held responsible.
[*True only for certain values of “exactly”.]
BECAUSE I AM TERRIBLE.
I will use the auxiliary roll that lives on top of the tank thing forEVER before I finish the actual roll and have to change it.
Ugh, every partner I have ever had has done a variation of this. How can you not see that you did not finish?! How?!!?
But I always forget to put the toilet lid down and then the dog drinks from it. And I leave hair everywhere. Monsters, all of us.
Here’s a neat trick to train your partner: live with roommates when you first move in together. Bitch to partner INCESSANTLY about every annoying thing your roommates do.
My formerly slovenly male partner now makes that goddamn kitchen SPARKLE. No lemon rind left unturned. He is afraid of my wrath, which I have never yet turned on him. We still have sex and stuff. Everybody wins.
Mine would be like:
I have stir-fried some vegetables
as a side dish for dinner
and left half of them in the pan
I will not ask
if you wanted seconds
or even mention the possibility of seconds
nor will I put the remaining vegetables
in the fridge
I’ll just leave them
in the pan
and leave the pan
on the stove
for goddamn DAYS
until you notice and yell at me
Oops. This might be me.
Shit. Sorry. 🙁
My absolute favourite WCW parody to date hails from Tumblr and is in my opinion the crown jewel of the Spiders Georg meme. I can’t find it among my liked posts but it went something like this:
this is just to say
I have eaten the spiders
that were in my cave
and which you were probably counting
for statistical purposes
forgive me
I am an outlier
and should not have been counted.
The PERFECTION of this.
this is just to say
I have eaten the hobbits
that were in my cave
and which you were probably counting
upon to save your world
forgive me
I am a remnant of the First Age
and should not have been disturbed
I literally do not remember the true text of the Spiders Georg meme because this variation of it is the only thing I can remember.
Once when I lived with my best guy friend, I went away for the weekend and we were out of toilet paper. I came back after the weekend and we were still out. I asked how he had been pooping all weekend and he said “Oh. . .I guess I’ve just been waiting till I go out places”. He found it more convenient to only poop at restaurants than to buy toilet paper. MEN.
Did he ever stop to examine the privilege that permitted him to go to a restaurant every time he needed to poop, which a lot of people could not afford to do? MEN indeed.
I have been longing for a Toast thread where I could post the following link!!!! Here is the link:
http://thesearejusttosay.tumblr.com/
it is “This Is Just To Say” multiply rewritten on the models of other poems (sonnets and ballads and whatnot).
So much depends
upon
Not doing the
dishes
Covered with old
food
In the full
sink
Which just creates an endless spiral of not-cleaning, because it’s hard to clean your own dishes after you cook, when the sink is already full of somebody else’s dishes.
My partner and I have to eat different meals each night because I have health issues and his daughter won’t eat any of my food (whole grain pastas, tofu, etc). So I cook for me and he cooks for them. He washes all the dishes because I generally don’t make a mess. I do the laundry and fold it, but he puts his and his daughter’s away. We have a cleaning lady so we don’t fight over chores. And when the dog-hair tumbleweeds get too thick, whoever’s bothered by it the most does it.
Pretty chill.
My husband and I have been talking about hiring a cleaner. Do you mind sharing your experience?
DO IT! 🙂 My husband and I just got a cleaner a few months ago, and it has definitely reduced my chores-related rage. I just figured I had better things to do with my time than trying to get him to stuff without having to ask a million times. The cleaner comes fortnightly, so we do still sometimes have to vacuum the dog hair tumbleweeds, and I still do the laundry, but it’s much better.
I also do the cooking and make my husband wash all the dishes (and I’m not careful about how many dishes I use, muhahaha!).
We tried to get a cleaner through word of mouth, but it was too hard as a lot of private cleaners were too busy to take on new people, so we went through an agency, and it’s been fine.
Are you at home when the work is being done? Do you negotiate a level of cleaning (for example, basic dust and vaccuum vs. window washing, shelf organizing, removing the horrible crusty stuff inside the toaster oven)?
It sounds like my husband and I have almost the identical division of labor currently. It works fine for us, but we finally make enough money now that hiring someone to save us time and probably do a better job than we would do anyway is definitely a possibility.
Sorry for the lateness, I hope you see this! They come during the day when we’re out, though my husband has occasionally been randomly home. There is a set list of tasks they do, and you can choose different levels for different prices. We have the basic level (vacuuming, dusting, mopping, bathrooms and kitchen benches/stove top), which is paying for a two hour minimum, but they will also sometimes do any dishes that are out if they have time.
From what I could see, most agencies do this kind of thing, so you could have a full housekeeping service if you wanted, like they’ll change your sheets and do the laundry etc, I wish we could afford that! I’m in Australia, but I assume it’s probably similar in a lot of places.
My boyfriend and I have a cleaner (and roommates, who do not contribute to our cleaner, and I don’t care). It’s fantastic. Our cleaning professional is wonderful. And we don’t fight about chores. OF COURSE there is still a lot of work around the house, and we split it basically.
The best part is that I have a very busy job and so when I’m too busy to clean, the house is still clean, which is great because when I am very stressed out I want the house to be clean the most.
My boyfriend is amazing, but I’m glad we don’t have to battle it out over vacuuming and stuff.
Practically speaking: we have a private cleaner found through a friend, she is great, I pay her $20 an hour, (although she asked for $15), she comes 4-5 hours every other week, we live in a large house but she doesn’t (or isn’t supposed to) clean my roommates’ bathroom or their rooms. She does our laundry, or the laundry she can get done while she’s around. She is basically on her own in terms of what she cleans, but she is very conscientious and cleans things I don’t know need to be cleaned. I text her to ask her to do particular things when that comes up. She usually comes when we’re at work. She has a key. I dislike being around when she’s working, mostly because I feel like I’m in the way. We give her big bonuses at Christmas, and I give her free legal advice.
As a cleaning professional, I always say that a major part of my job is saving relationships one load of laundry at a time.
BLESS YOU.
Both my flatmate and I do numbers 1, 2, and 4, which is why we have the filthiest and most harmonious flat in the East End. The secret to being a disgusting slob without being a douche about: live exclusively with other disgustingly slobbish persons.
Hear hear! Worst 6 months of my life was when I lived with roommates who argued about what type of bathroom cleaner to use. I was like, guys, at least we all clean the bathroom?
Our roommate conflicts declined 70% when we started saying “Hey, we live in filth.” in roommate interviews. It is the way.
Living with my brother was unexpectedly great because we both just leave everything on the floor and never pick it up. He’s the only roommate I haven’t had to be tidy for.
thank you for reminding me that this exists:
I love that she’s left-handed.
So I don’t think a man should have to be tricked into doing chores, but hey I will take what works and our house has not been cleaner since we started playing habitRPG. My dude can buy now fancy armor with the gold he earns from mopping the floors and folding laundry? Those floors STAY clean. Also maybe I have to be tricked into doing chores, too, because now I have a pet dragon and a pet wolf and glorious lady armor and I love it.
I live by myself and I still have to trick myself into doing chores, so that might be a good approach for me.
It’s kind of shockingly compelling, and you can join up with other players and go on quests. My friend who lives on the other side of the country has started playing with us and it is a delight. It’s open source and free, and they keep making updates and changes to it so thus far it’s stayed pretty fresh.
This looks pretty fantastic. I’m awful about ignoring chores, but if I can turn them into a game…
habitrpg has worked pretty well for me too. If anyone wants to go adventuring together, let me know!
Hahaha. That’s *so* nerdy! Love it!
Just signed up. Where has this been all my life?
Has the mobile app gotten any better? I used it for a few months last year, but the necessity of being tethered to the computer eventually pushed me away from it.
Powdered sugar on the floor – any food bits on the floor, really – this is what dogs are for.
#notalldogs because stomach problems.
According to this I am A Man? I don’t really do chores. My husband cooks, washes the dishes, takes out the trash, and picks up my clothes.
But I’m not passive-aggressive about it! So maybe I’m just doing really well at Womaning.
If y’all liked these, check out the Koch parody, which will always be my favorite: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/248446
This is just to say,
Can you lay off about the plums,
It’s been years and anything
I do wrong
Leads back to those plums
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m Sorry!
And the worst thing is
I had diarrhea for the rest of that day
And I think it was the plums,
those goddamn plums.
Why does so much seem to depend on those Plums.
I would be afraid this would be his last roomie note, taped to the door:
this is just to say
I have keyed your car
which is outside
it was clean
and so smooth
(& I was sick of
hearing about the plums,
I mean, damn.)
WAITROSE
ROTTING
HAIRS
PISS
INCOMPETENCE
oh my god
I am so so so sorry. I can't imagine having to cope with that. SO GROSS. Like, my dude is learning because I chose to invest some effort into it as I could see there was some point in doing so, as all other spheres of our shared life were good. And even then I was prepared to break up with him if he continued to be terrible.
But those dudes? So horrible. I hate that there's the assumption the lady-type person will ~*help deuds be better*~ in all aspects of life. No! YOU take up the responsibility and better first, dudes, we've been saying this shit for a long time.
genius
Sorry for the lateness, I hope you see this! They come during the day when we're out, though my husband has occasionally been randomly home. There is a set list of tasks they do, and you can choose different levels for different prices. We have the basic level (vacuuming, dusting, mopping, bathrooms and kitchen benches/stove top), which is paying for a two hour minimum, but they will also sometimes do any dishes that are out if they have time.
From what I could see, most agencies do this kind of thing, so you could have a full housekeeping service if you wanted, like they'll change your sheets and do the laundry etc, I wish we could afford that! I'm in Australia, but I assume it's probably similar in a lot of places.
What a poetry on home appliances! I'm sure that you like your home appliances.