Without hesitation, “Yes, it is,” Wally said.

What? Without even thinking about the question? An unequivocal yes. Shit, I must be a difficult spouse. I bet I’m high maintenance. That’s it, I’m still too high maintenance, even though I have chilled out so much since my twenties.

“Why do you think marriage is hard?” I asked.

“I don’t know. It just is,” he answered.

“Can you tell me something in our marriage, some area or whatever that you think is hard?”

Silence.

“No, I can’t think of anything.”

“So why do you think marriage is hard?”

“I don’t know. I guess because everyone says it is.”

**********************************************************************************

Fourteen years.

Wally and I were married fourteen years ago today.

And this is where I’m supposed to post pictures from our wedding day and write romantic and lovely things about it, about our relationship, how we were meant to be, etc., etc.

Except I can’t.

Whatever notion of romance I had in me has long evaporated. I intellectually comprehend and understand the notion of romance as it’s defined by our society. I see it, watch it, read it. I hear the pretty words of devotion. I see the token acts of love. I try to seize this notion of romance and force myself to feel it again, just once more.

Except I can’t. These conventional notions of marital love feel too superficial for me now. I tell myself those acts are for new love, for love that hasn’t been worn by five thousand days, eight thousand diapers and sixty-hour work weeks.

Yes, our love has been worn by those things until it is soft, pliable, weathered. There is no going back.

*****************************************************************************

In fourteen years, we’ve watched many friend and family marriages fall apart. I would venture to guess more have fallen apart than have stayed together. And the ones who have made it? Are they happy? I’m wise enough now to know better than to assume a 20-year marriage equates a happy couple. It seems almost too intimate a question to ask anyone.

Are you happy?

As our anniversary approached, I toyed with the idea of asking Wally that question – are you happy? But something stopped me. I mean, something other than the constant demand of children and the resulting exhaustion that still causes us to flop into bed at 9 pm, leaving little time for couple conversations.

I don’t think I didn’t ask because I am afraid of the answer, afraid he will say he isn’t. The truth is that I have come to the realization that Wally’s happiness is not my responsibility. My happiness isn’t his responsibility, either.

Is that weird? It isn’t exactly the conventional idea of how married couples should be. We should be the air we breathe, the meaning in our life, we should need each other! But no, we are none of those things. Your happiness in life is your responsibility, and mine is mine.

Either Wally and I are onto something different here, or we’re really fucking this marriage thing up.

*********************************************************************************

I find out last week another friend of mine divorced.

Fourteen years.

How have we made it?

I have no earthly idea.

Is it because we have something special? Because we don’t have something special and we know it, thus not setting ourselves up for disappointment?

Is it because we’re completely awesome people? Is it because Wally throws away the milk jug ring I ALWAYS leave on the counter without rolling his eyes and I wipe up the bread crumbs he ALWAYS leaves on the counter without rolling my eyes?

Is it because we genuinely like each other?

Will we make it to The End of Days, the curmudgeonly days where we shout at each other, not because we’re angry, but because we’re mostly deaf, where hair is white and thin, or possibly transparent. Will we make it to The End, holding hands as one of us slips away to the next great adventure?

Or will our union die a premature death? A death brought upon by too much devotion to the kids and not enough to ourselves as a couple, that old, tired scenario where the baby leaving for college is the suicide pill.

How will we make it?

I have no earthly idea.

I have no idea if we’ll make it to the future. How can I know? To try to know is futile. To pretend I know is a farce.

All I can know is today.

And today I know I love you.

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

Instead, I’m failing miserably at hostage negotiations for my computer. Little heathens have absconded with it to ToonTown (again!) and I’m forced to type this blog on our 8-year-old G4 Mac desktop. Oh, the humanity!

(I swear to you the computer gave itself a hernia simply trying to load my blog. )

Obviously I suck at mediation and why I need your help. See, Wally and I had a fight this morning. And when I say “fight,” I mean I am right and Wally is wrong but he doesn’t realize he is wrong, thus the fight.

Well, that’s usually how it goes. This time is different because I don’t know if I’m actually right, another reason for a mediator. I’m usually so fucking sure of myself that I don’t need input from anyone. But not this time.

(I scared myself typing that. Me? Not sure of myself? OMFG.)

See, I bought a dress last summer. But I was borderline too pudgy to wear it at the time, my legs too jiggly for the length of the hem. It hung in my closet until now, a year after doing the 30-Day Shred and turning my legs from Mrs. Jiggly McThighRubber to Mrs. CouldChokeTheLifeOutOfYouInALegLock.

Pardon me if I say so, but my legs are damn sexy now. After 14 months of squats and leg bends, I think I’ve earned the right to say it.

But do you know what else I have this year that I didn’t have last year? More fine lines around the eyes. The vague beginnings of age spots on my hands. Another year added to my age that puts me on the downhill side to 40.

I fear I am too old for a dress this short.

There’s nothing I find more pitiful than a woman dressing too young for her age. I loathe to be that woman; the one who grasps for the last vestiges of youth instead of aging with style and grace. I mean, I have the sense to not attempt ultra low-rise jeans, or even get close enough to a Hollister’s door to breathe the dark, putrid air of teenage hormones and bony hips.

Have I lost my sense with this dress, though? I don’t know! Which is worse than knowing! If I knew, I could do something about it, like wear the fucking dress or take it to Goodwill. I guess I’m going to have to show it to you so we can resolve this terrible problem in my life.

Please, pay NO attention to the Le Creuset braiser on the stove and focus on me instead. I know it’s hard, because, my God, Heather’s famous LE CREUSET. I’ve already done you a favor by cutting my head off since it was wrapped in a towel, waiting to be dried, and I knew that hot sexiness would completely obliterate your ability to focus on the hem of the dress. So try to focus.

After putting on the little summer tunic dress, I asked Wally if it was too short. It felt too short. Of course, I married a fucking saint, so he says no, it’s absolutely not too short, I look hot.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“But do you think the girls in your office will look at me and think, gah, look at her, she’s too old now to wear something that short.”

When your husband works in an office full of young, twentysomething hotties whose stomachs have not been jellified through pregnancy, much less a beluga whale pup pregnancy like mine, these are the thoughts that go through your head.

Wally’s response: Silence. With the lifting of eyebrows, as if to say, oh shit, they probably will.

My age paranoia grows exponentially. How else is a grown woman to respond to such a slight than with histrionics and a temper tantrum?

So I’m sitting here, 10 o’clock with errands to run and haven’t stepped foot out of my house in this dress.

Be honest with me, because this is just between you and me and God. And the internet.

Have I reached an age where that is too short?

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

What? What is this Mardi Gras blasphemy?

I know. Please don’t tell. I could never live it down. In fact, I may be barred from our private, elitist balcony if the truth got out and I would have to whore my balcony privileges back through multitudes of chocolate chip cookies given to Wally’s boss.

I guess hitting the very beginning edge of middle age is already taking its toll on me. Five straight days of Mardi Gras parades and I barely got a buzz. I acted all responsible and crap. I don’t think this bodes well for the future. I must need a fun intervention. You may all get together and plan it, preferably one that includes absconding me to a tropical island with sexy, topless cabana boys and fruity alcoholic drinks in pineapples.

On top of the “responsible drinker” role I am now playing, Wally is on vacation this week. That means I’m also playing “dutiful wife” who initiates stimulating adult conversations during our six hours of alone time while the kids are in school. So far we have discussed…

Amendments to one of our sons’ IEPs

Selling our house in the worst housing market in decades

Painting our bedroom

The awesomeness of Le Creuset

Aaaaannnnnddd that’s about it. What the hell do you talk about after almost 17 years together?

It’s like we don’t know how to break out of Parent Mode and back into Couple Mode in just six hours. The half-life of uranium is something like 704 million years, people, and if you’ve ever seen a playroom after 8 kids eat red-iced birthday cake, you know children are more unstable and destructive than uranium. So I’m thinking somewhere around 2.3 billion years are needed to reclaim half of your identity as a couple.

Summary: We are screwed.

Each time we’ve asked one another what we want to do with our six hours of freedom (times 3 days), the conversations rapidly deteriorates into mouth breathing and nose picking. And when I say rapidly, I mean instantly.

And I’m sure many of you are thinking SEX. HAVE SEX, DUH, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

It seems logical, doesn’t it? No kids = mad monkey sex

But come on. SEVENTEEN YEARS, PEOPLE. Seriously. Three months shy of it. And after that long, we’ve done it here and there, we’ve done it everywhere, every way. It’s great, it’s fun. And then what?

It may not be cool to admit that in our mid- to late thirties  sex isn’t the end all be all of our relationship, but there it is. (Remember: I’m an authentic liar) We enjoy it, sure. But damned if we want to run around our house naked for six straight hours, pretending to be a lust-crazed, co-dependent couple who just can’t get enough of each other.

Believe me, we can get enough of each other.

We’re down to our last 6 hours alone tomorrow (Friday), and with us visiting the library twice already, shuttling me to and from the chiropractor and subsequent back spasms, clearly we’ve used up all of our fun ideas.

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

PROTECT YOUR BALLS, MENZ,
‘CUZ THE WIMMINZ WILL EAT THEM RAW IF YOU LET THEM!

What the hell was that all about, this throwback to the old definition of what it means to be a man?

This is because of the Great Recession, isn’t it?

I can see how it’s connected. Men are losing their jobs (not like they are the only ones) and this really puts a kink in their definition of self (understandably) and so of course the women are trying to steal our manhood!

Total rational leap.

Take this Super Bowl commercial in particular – the one for a Dodge Charger.

As a feminist, I admit this rubs my non-Brazilian waxed bottom the wrong way. Quite frankly, if I were a man, it would probably rubbed my hairy-I-don’t-really-have-to-do-manscaping-because-all-my-underwear-and-swimwear-covers-everything bottom the wrong way. But the last time I checked, I’m not a man. So as a woman, I have many things to say to this commercial and I will.

I will get up and walk the dog at 6:30 am.

I will remind you that you wanted the fucking dog, not me.

I will eat some fruit as part of my breakfast.

I will eat some fruit as part of my breakfast too. Because neither of us revels in the idea of having sex with a fat ass, so you’re welcome too.

I will shave. I will clean the sink after I shave.

I will shave too! And I will clean up any mess I make, like a grown-up too!

I will be at work at 8 am. I will sit through two hour meetings.

I will wonder what the hell this has to do with me.

I will say yes when you want me to say yes. I will be quiet when you don’t want me to say no.

I will investigate what kind of shit drugs you are on, causing you to have delusional conversations with yourself. Fuck, you have a job (that you go to at EIGHT am!), we can afford better street drugs.

I will take your call.

I will take your call too. And all the calls from the school regarding our kids.  That’s my two to your one, you self-centered, pussy-ass whiner.

I will listen to your opinion of my friends. I will listen to your friend’s opinion of my friends.

And I will listen to you fart when you pee. We both hear shit we’d rather not hear.

I will be civil to your mother.

I will be civil to yours. We should prepare ourselves to be showered with honors for our great acts of humanity.

I will put the seat down.

I will think, hmm, you lifted it up.

I will separate the recycling.

I will cook the vast majority of your meals.

I will carry your lip balm.

I will carry your children. For forty-weeks. I will vomit for 16 of those weeks. Boy, you’re right, carrying my lip balm every now and then is a lot to ask!

I will watch your vampire TV shows with you.

I will watch your blow-shit-up-for-no-reason man shows with you. See how give and take works in a relationship?

I will take my socks off before getting into bed.

I will put on attractive night gowns before getting into bed.

I will put my socks in the basket.

I will wash and dry them. See how team work is applied to real life?

And because I do this, I will drive the car I want to drive. MAN’S LAND STAND!

And because I do this, I will…..I will…..Shit, what  will I do? Buy the jewelry I want to buy?

I think if I need an expensive object to compensate for the way our lives meld together, for the way we dance in and out and around each other, day after day, sometimes leading, sometimes following, then the expensive object I need the most is probably a divorce attorney.

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

.

Fudge

.

Presents

.

Overeating

.

Wow, wasn’t that like the most amusing and interesting Christmas recount out of all the millions of post-Christmas blogs right now? So let’s move on to what I really want to talk about – DRYERS.

I know what you’re thinking: Please, God, tell me Santa left Heather a new dryer so she will stop bitching and complaining about her horrible dryer and the heaps of ironing she is forced to do because of the horrible dryer.

Santa DID NOT.

I know! I feel compelled to do emotional binge eating too, why doesn’t Santa love me?

What Santa did give me was money. And a brother-in-law who is a super genius at mechanics and told us how to fix my old dryer so it will heat once again.

On the Sunday after Christmas, I masterminded an escape from my current house arrest and got away from my small rabid co-inmates who have been lodged up my craw for a week. Meanwhile, Wally promised he would try to fix our old dryer.

“Oh honey, if you can fix our old dryer, I will (specific sexual favors redacted), that is how happy it will make me!”

Wally made a beeline for his Craftsmen tool set. Of course he did. Because he loves to make me happy, I’m sure, and not because he really wants to (redacted).  I bebopped out of the house, deciding to price out some new dryers, just in case he can’t fix it. And that’s when I went into a fudge-induced diabetic coma OMG, NEW RITZY DRYERS ARE A THOUSAND FUCKING DOLLARS.

But I recovered quickly. It’s not like I didn’t know they were that expensive. But still, being faced with the price tag while in serious consideration of buying? I need smelling salts just retelling it.

The salesman tried time and again to impress me with one fancy dryer option after another.

Machine sanitizing option!

Eh, we’re too germophobic as a society. A little bacteria is good for us!

24 button control panel!

Yeah, I use all of two settings on my dryer. Seriously.

STEAM!

$1500 for steam. Are you fucking kidding?

I continued to be unimpressed, insisting I wanted a dryer that (are you sitting down?) simply dries clothes without everything coming out wrinkled. I’m so demanding, I expect dryers to perform miracles!

When I returned home, Wally proudly showed me the relay out of the dryer, thinking that’s the mechanical problem. And won’t that be an easy fix?!

On Monday he went to the appliance repair store and bought a new relay, plus two other thingies that control the heat of the dryer. One of these three will fix it! For sure!

“Really? That’s great! How much were the parts?”

“Only $75 for all of it.”

“You mean I’ve carried out 4-6 hours of ironing each week for over a year when all it cost to fix our dryer is $75 and two hours of your time?”

“Um.”

Yes, yes I have. I did four loads of laundry yesterday. In my old dryer that is now heating. And there were no clothes that needed ironing. So now I’m forced to renounce my offer of (specific sexual favors redacted) and reevaluate exactly who owes who what around here.

Let’s see: 4-6 hours a week or ironing, we’ll say an average of 5. At least $10 per hour for menial labor (I’m cutting him a deal.) That’s $50 per week, 52 weeks. I think I’m owed somewhere around $2600 just for labor, and what about pain and emotional suffering from the ironing?.

When I presented this offer to Wally his response was, “It would be cheaper for me to buy you a new fucking dryer.”

Ok, fine.

In return, though, Wally agreed to make some housewife p0rn for me. And because I love my readers, I am going to share it with you.

Untitled from Heather Hitchcock on Vimeo.

That is some of the best p0rn ever.

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

ONE.

That’s all. The remaining 1,573 wrinkled pieces belong to the short and loud people in the house who show no appreciation for all the ironing I do every week.

Some of you may think it’s my laziness that causes so much ironing. I must not get the clothes out of the dryer promptly! Well, you’re wrong. The buzzer doesn’t even finish buzzing before I’m in there, desperately pulling clothes out, trying to prevent wrinkles. It never works.

The real culprit of the weekly mountain of wrinkled clothes is the goddamn dryer. I once had a wonderful dryer. WONDERFUL! Then, after a mere 6 years, it broke. Stopped heating, just like that! I guess Kenmore isn’t so wonderful after all.

We considered buying a new dryer, but did you know most new dryers cost more than a house payment? I’m not even making that up. It’s insane. Do people make it a habit of stealing from their kids’ college savings in order to afford these things?

Lucky for us (or so I thought at the time), my dad had an extra dryer since he’d just purchased a new one. Yay! No need to fork out $1200 for a dryer right now.

Now I know why my dad bought a new dryer. Everything comes out of this dryer wrinkled. EVERYTHING, even the wrinkle-free clothes.

So I really should be ironing right now and for the next three hours instead of writing this blog post. But I’m not. I can’t make myself do it. There are so many other things I’d rather do. In fact, I decided to share with you the things I’d rather do than iron.

• Pluck toe hair.

• Pluck my husband’s old-man ear hair.

• Listen to my kids cry and whine when I force them to do their homework.

• Read blogs.

• Like The Bloggess, who, thank god, doesn’t get Twilight either. I’m adding her to my Christmas list, along with all other Twilight haters. I hope she likes handmade scarves. I plan to knit one that says FUCK EDWARD, COUNT DRACULA HAD BALLS!

• And Stacey, whom I love with the strength of a thousand moons. That’s in direct opposition of how much I hate doing push-ups on the 30 Day Shred (with the strength of a thousand suns). That is how much I love Stacey’s writing. I can’t recall her thoughts on Twilight, but I’m hoping I can keep her on my Christmas list too.
• Look up when to use “whom” or “who.”

• Give myself an enema.

• Give an old person a enema, that is how much I hate ironing.

• Discover the cure for male skid marks, which would make me rich enough I could hire someone to do my ironing. Or just buy a new ritzy dryer.

• Have sex with Santa in exchange for a new ritzy dryer.

The extremes in which I would go to avoid ironing knows no bounds. Except for one. I’ll iron for 40 straight days and 40 straight nights before reading the rest of Twilight. I read all the way up to page 285 and had to stop in order to make my last will and testament before killing myself, that was the torture I endured. Never again. Not even ironing is that bad.

But it’s close.

When Wally got home, I cried and demonstrated the extent of my suffering to him by serving cold leftovers for dinner. And to this he replied, “Honey, I’ll do the ironing for you.”

That’s just like a man, getting in the way of a woman’s success as a martyr.

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

Okay, truthfully, I decided to finally decorate our house. Even though Wally also complains our house looks like we just moved in and wants it to reflect more of who we are too, I’m the only one who has gotten excited and energized over turning our house into a home, finally. Men.

Anyway, I’ve gang pressed Wally into service by making him design some art for the walls. And this MUST BE DONE BEFORE THANKSGIVING! I don’t know why I’ve set this deadline for myself. I guess I imagine my family walking into my home on Thanksgiving oooh’ing and aaah’ing over the new splash of style, the artful way I’ve transformed our home during the Great Recession through awesome Goodwill finds and my own personal slave labor.

What are the chances that will actually happen before they begin their roles of Frank and Estelle Constanza? Let me put it like this: I’ll turn it into a drinking game where for every 15 minutes that goes by without my parents commenting on the new decor, I’ll do a shot of bourbon. I’ll be drunk before 9 am. If I add in a shot for every time they yell at each other like Frank and Estelle, I’ll pass out before 10 am.

I love quotes and plan to incorporate them into some of the artwork Wally is designing. But I don’t want the “Live Laugh Love” or any of the other commercial sayings that are all the rage right now. It must be more original than that, yet thought provoking, yet not schmaltzy, but yet still short enough to fit in the frames I scored at Goodwill.

This is my latent anal-retentiveness coming out. It’s a life-long disease, really, one in which you may manage but never fully recover.

So I decided to make up my own quotes, ones that reflect the times in which we live, the things we currently value, spend energy on – you know, that kind of stuff, etc.

Here’s what I’ve come up with so far.

“I have 1,147 followers on Twitter.”

“My blog is in the top 1% of blogs.”

“I have integrity. Because I have an HTML-embedded badge on my blog saying so.”

“Have you felt my Twitter influence? I just moved up 5 places on the influence chart.”

“I get at least 50 PR pitches a day, my ability to whore products is that respected.”

What do you think?

No?

Okay, how about this one?

“He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.” -Oscar Wilde

That one is probably a better quote for bloggers but still not quite it.

“I don’t want to live. I want to love first, and live incidentally.” -Zelda Fitzgerald

Yes, that’s it. One down, two more to go.

(*I don’t always get 50 PR pitches a day. Sometimes it’s 0. Okay, most days it’s 0.)

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

This is man-talk for “not tonight, I have a headache.”

“Yep, that was some good food,” I replied.

“Yep, we work well together in the kitchen,” he said. “I made the BBQ, you made the cake, now if only someone else would wash the dishes.”

“I just know the Dish Fairies will come tonight. I feel it!”

To this, Wally announced “Um, I don’t believe in Dish Fairies.”

Gasp!

“No damn wonder they never come here. You must believe in them before they will come. It’s your fault I’m always doing dishes, you bastard.”

The millions of dishes I’ve washed for 13 years, all because of him and his refusal to believe in the Dish Fairies.

Fucker.

He probably doesn’t believe in the Cleaning Fairies either and that’s why all the little boy dirty socks that appear in the hallway every night after their baths are still there in the morning.

Whatever am I going to do with this unbeliever I married?

Isn’t there a place in hell for unbelievers? Like a purgatory of infrequent sex or something?

Please, readers, tell Wally of the special place in hell reserved for the unbelievers.

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

Wally: I think I’ve lost my crazy.

Me: *blink blink* Please, God, tell me “crazy” isn’t secret man code for “ability to get it up.”

Wally: Or maybe I never had Crazy?

Me: *blink blink*

Wally: Okay, I must have never had Crazy.

Me: What do you mean, lost your crazy?

Wally: I feel like I’ve lost what makes me different. I don’t do anything off the wall anymore. I never write anymore! I wanted to write a book.

Me: Um, since when? You never write.

Wally: Back in college. I wrote a lot. I have an idea for a book, you know.

Me: *blink blink*

Wally: We watched that Apple commercial the other night and I realized I’m not one of the crazy ones. Waaahhh!

Can you believe this, people? This is what I have to put up with – a man trying to steal my thunder. I can’t even have an early mid-life crisis to myself, for fuck’s sake.

On Friday night, Wally (aka Thunder Stealer) had a “business dinner” with a client. I can’t say whom but they are in the business of gambling and rock and roll memorabilia.

Tell me, is it really a good idea to confess your own midlife crisis to your wife the day before you go on a “business dinner” that involves gambling, rock and roll, and a client guest list that is almost all women?

Wally kept saying “but I won’t have a good time without you there!” Who does he think he’s talking to, someone who made a C in Calculus III? I don’t think so. I know he just wants to get lucky when he gets home from his night of fun with other adults.

I spent Friday night not having adult conversations over a dinner of shrimp au gratin and crab meat with people whose business is gambling and rock and roll. Instead, my dinner conversation was with a paper cow over a Chick Fil A sandwich. After this succulent dinner, I spent the rest of my evening helping my oldest son put together his first Erector set. If that one act doesn’t cement me as a nerd, I don’t know what will. The worst part? I had to do this sober.

Who really deserves the pity party: me or Wally? Sister, please.

(P.S. Wally hasn’t taken me out to a dinner party in over 18 months. We know what happens when I don’t get enough socialization. )

Well, I’ll tell you who actually deserves the pity party: the entire world and humankind, that’s who. After putting together that Erector set with the tiniest screws and nuts and bolts in the universe, I’m practically an engineer.

So you have me with my straight A’s all through calculus, an Erector degree in engineering, a psychology degree in which to manipulate the thinking of an entire nation, all backed up by a “Crazy One” science genius and a little math whiz by the name of Parker. I’m now fully prepared to seize control of the U.S. government.

I hope you’re afraid.

And is it just me, or didn’t that Apple commercial make you want to hump your Macbook too? I mean, my god. I’m just like Einstein, Amelia Earhart, Gandi and Muhammad Ali, all because I own a Mac and it makes me think differently. Plus I have  two evil genius heirs to take over my reign once I’m gone.

Here’s to the Crazy Ones!

You should really be afraid now.

©2010 Queen of Shake Shake. All Rights Reserved.

Oh, how I love lists.

My grocery list? Is divided up into categories (staples, canned, dairy, frozen, etc.), and it doesn’t stop there. The categories are in the order of the shopping aisles of my local Super Wal-Mart. You won’t find me backtracking in Wal-Mart.

Whenever I have a big event coming up, like a birthday party or my entire family staying for Mardi Gras, I take list making to new heights. I become a complete and total list whore.

When family visits, my house must be absolutely clean, including the baseboards and the sliver of flooring behind the toilet. Because I know my family will get down on their hands and knees and inspect my baseboards, and if they can not lick an accidental drip of fondue cheese off of them, I will be shamed forever. SHAMED!

And if my pantries (yes, I have more than one) aren’t a testament to Martha Stewart and her organizational skills with lined baskets, the world will swallow me whole then shit me out in purgatory where I will spend eternity organizing pantries that never stay organized.

Wait a minute. That sounds like my real life pantry. What the hell? Have I died and gone to purgatory and don’t know it? I suppose that’s what I get for not reading the Bible. But shit, I have a MacBook and WiFi in purgatory, so at least it’s a purgatory for white-collar yuppies.

With all the preparation I put into hosting a family gathering, it’s easy to see how I might get a tad overwhelmed. This is how lists save the day.

I write down everything that needs to be done, organized by the day the chore needs to be done. Really, you don’t want to clean your refrigerator out too soon in advance or else you’ll end up having to do it again.

But what do my lists have to do with being the greatest wife? Because it sounds like I’m always shoving a honey-do list in Wally’s face, doesn’t it? Well, no one likes a list harpy!

(Which is why I call myself a list whore and the ‘whore’ part makes Wally happy. Jedi mind tricks are so easy on the weak-minded.)

Truthfully, I’ve never made a honey-do list. Ever. In 13 years of marriage.

Instead, I made a couple-do list and it’s things we are to achieve “together.” It’s like Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson singing about ebony and ivory all over again – it fits because I have jet black hair and we’re white.

So I have the couple-do list…well, ok, two of them. Or maybe three. Anyway, I have these multiple lists and we were going to work together as a team. Rah!

But then I get a loving hair up my ass. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, really. I find myself crying over commercials and talking about a cat that died 6 years ago. And then I cried during The Perfect Storm movie, during a scene that shouldn’t involve tears.

I stood at my kitchen counter, feeling all teary and hormonal, and decided I would do a good and wonderful thing for my husband and start working on the couple-do list BEFORE THE WEEKEND. How sweet of me! And so thoughtful to spare my husband.

This is what great and wonderful wives do because that would free up our weekend for quality family time, say, over foam and sticker crafts. Wheee! Like, Daddy could bond with his sons over glitter!

I am SO THE GREATEST WIFE IN THE WORLD!

Only now I’ve had to work hard vacuuming up glitter and cleaning baseboards and vacuuming glitter and wiping dirty fingerprints off of walls, door jams and doors, and vacuuming glitter, and organizing pantries, and vacuuming glitter.

This white-collar yuppie purgatory isn’t that great after all. And I think Satan invented glitter.

Obviously I am a housecleaning genius, no? I can kick Fly Lady’s ass all the way to aisle 8 in Super Wal-Mart, which according to my list, is the chip and soft drink aisle. As you know, I’m a giver, not a taker, so I will gladly give my housewife knowledge to you FOR FREE. And if you aren’t satisfied within 90 days, you can give my advice back FOR FREE.

All you have to do is click here with your burning housewife questions, such as how do you make your cookies so freaking awesome, oh wise Heather. Or! Will Johnny Depp play your gypsy lover in the movie based on your life, Chocolat Cookie?

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