Household questions

PS If I asked him to do it, he would.

Sometime

Like (as they say....)

Eventually.

A thought: I wonder if my poking them with an arrow point, so that we had bunches of burst balloons, would speed the process up or drop a heavy enough hint? Knowing DH, probably not , but I can imagine his expression when (if) he noticed #domesticbliss

The trouble with leaving balloons in situ is that they shrivel and become a thoroughly off-putting sight. Burst balloons are no lovelier. Perhaps when he notices dangling strips of wrinkled coloured rubber Mr Bags might feel inspired to fetch a step ladder. It's always difficult to know with men .

Fetch the step ladder when he's around and make it look as if you intend to do it yourself. That should energise him.

Similarly with Daisy the Cat's matted areas . She refuses to be brushed, so has to be held very firmly by DH while I attempt to gently untangle/trim clumps. Neither Daisy nor DH enjoy this much, as she growls, scratches and bites. Didn't get it done yesterday....no time to do it this morning as we have to visit elderly relative . Appointment made for this afternoon.

I wish, nanado! Mr Bags is such a believer in gender equality that it would never occur to him offer help where I'm clearly perfectly capable. I'm getting better at asking for help when I need it, but this story is just amusing.

absent, bunches of wrinkled balloons don't look out of place in our house. I'm not kidding!

This morning I asked him to check out availability of lightweight but good vacuum cleaners during his lunch-time wanderings. He's good at stuff like that and I hate it. Different strengths

Mr P is always "marked absent" when it comes to changing the cat litter trays or dealing with any feline "accidents".

A few years ago we had friends staying and early one morning as Mr P was leaving the house for work, he saw that one of the little darlings had left a deposit on the hell rug. He didin't clear it up but very thoughtfully wrote a sign saying "DANGER! BEWARE CAT POO!" with an arrow on it and sellotaped it to the hall table.

Bags, if he finds one, please tell me about it. Made a mistake in ordering one from Amazon and it has proved too heavy and tomorrow I have to send it back - don't have time today.

Oh, I do recognise all this. But you know, when I worked with Relate, one of the things we had learned at training was n"Nver assume that your partner is telepathic." But I do, all the time!

I cannot believe that clever Gransnetters lack the wiles to deal with these sorts of situations. It took Mr absent years to realise what was happening to him whenever I said "Would you like to change the cat litter?" as if anyone would actually like such a thing.

That reminds me of sailing with DH. He said: "You might like to tighten the jib". I looked at the jib and thought it was fine. Shrug! As helm, if he wanted the jib tightening, he should have said: "Tighten the jib."

He also argued with me when I was helming! Some people have great difficulty with commands, even when they are entirely appropriate. Weird.

If we had a cat litter tray and I said what you said, absent, MrBags would simply say no (good-humouredly). If I said "Please could you empty the cat litter tray?" he'd do it.

Don't see the point of beating about the bush. I can't do manipulative.

My beloved late stepfather was a very intelligent and rather academic man, but seemed to lack common sense. I remember popping round one day while my mother was at work and seeing a note she had left for him. It read:

COLLECT dry cleaning
TAX the car
FEED Bron (the dog)
PHONE the builder re. wall
SHARPEN UP FOR CHRISTS SAKE !!!!

I could almost feel her frustration!

My ex was useless. I didn't learn to drive until I was 26, even though he had a car provided by his company as well as our own, which just stood on the drive. He asked me to tax that car, which meant taking two buses to Kingston upon Thames, with a 6-month old and a 2 year old, with a hard-to-fold double buggy. His usual request was that I 'just' do this or that for him.
If I asked him to vacuum, he just did the bits of carpet that showed. I had to spell out simple things for him, like pointing out that washing the pots involved washing the pans and cutlery too. He was brought up in a house with a grandmother, mother and sister who did all the work.
Once I started teaching, I became quite authoritative and he didn't know what had hit him!

Bags my answer to him would have been--I dont know when are you planning on taking them down

phoenix you know that is soo true I have found that when a person is very academic they do sometimes lack common sense my, DH is always telling me that--I wonder why ha ha

It's the rubbish with us,he always "forgets" and then I have to collect it together and put it out. It's not hard, but I found myself beginning to resent it even though there is no reason why it should be his job more than mine, but I just feel it is.Now on rubbish day , I just get up a bit earlier and leave the house to go swimming before he goes to work, or starts on his computer, and I leave a note saying,Don't forget its rubbish day,xxx, simple but it works. It is childish I know but it has become a "bee in my bonnet"

This thread reminds me of something one of my female lecturers said back in the 1970s. We were discussing gender stereotypes and someone suggested that we would know women had achieved equality in the home when men cleaned the toilets. My lecturer said 'no, we will know we have reached equality when women don't have to organise the men to clean the toilets '. It seems that despite all our hopes and ideals we have not come very far. They still need to be organised by a woman. Or pretend they do.
(Apologies to our male members who I'm sure do not fit this stereotype )

cheelu, brilliant! I'll remember that one.

greatnan 'he just vacuumed the bits of carpet that showed'
.......what other bits does one vacuum?

In our house it would be is a case of "you put 'em up there, you get 'em down. #anti xmas git

Jane, I don't know about you but I move my furniture to vacuum under it.

The extent of my hubby`s contribution to jobs around the house consists of putting the wheelie bin out on Wednesday night, ready for emptying on Thursday morning. Occasionally, VERY occasionally, he`ll actually bring it back in the morning. Today, when I really didn`t want to totter unsteadily over ice and snow to get it, I dropped a few hints about the bin. Guess who brought it back?

* bags* Shoot them down with your arrows!

Jane - you took the words out of my mouth!