Before I get into the post below, just a heads up that I ended up publishing that sexy story on Medium that I mentioned yesterday. And someone told me via Twitter that if you guys hit the like button on these posts, it helps me get more visibility on Substack or something, so thanks for hitting the heart button, keep doing that.
I grew up in a household where my parents entertained a fair bit for work and for pleasure, so we always had some type of domestic help. It would have been impossible for them both to be QCs and rush home to cook, clean, and prepare the house for dinner where MPs and leading Academics would turn up.
As a result, I always grew up with our family having a cleaning lady who would come three times a week, and a woman who would come by twice a week to pick up and drop off our laundry and my parents dry cleaning.
My father is an exceptional cook, but my mother is passable and really dislikes it. Whenever we’d have people over, my father would be in charge of the kitchen and my mother would be the lead entertainer. When I became older, I was encouraged to also be gregarious and keep guests’ glasses full and a smile on their faces.
But I never once cleaned a bathroom or even so much as washed dishes. We’d always had a dishwasher and after a party, the next morning the cleaning lady would come by to make a special cleaning.
I would literally come home pretty much every day from school to a spotless house.
I never really thought about it.
When Jamie and I bought a house together while we were engaged, I moved from my parents’ house to our house. We ate out a lot, ordered in occasionally, and we hired the same cleaner and laundry person as my parents - we were both junior lawyers, so we didn’t really have time to be domestic.
To be fair, Jamie is much better than me. He’ll do a load of towels and sheets a few times a week, and I’ve even seen him whip out the Dyson and zip around the floors.
I can cook, but I dislike it. My father would coral me into the kitchen on weekends under the false pretense of conversation and helping him and surreptitiously, he taught me how to be a passable cook.
Jamie would burn water if given the opportunity, so we keep him away from the kitchen. He will every so often fire up the BBQ in the summer and overcook some meat to feel like he’s the man of the house, but realistically, he knows his culinary limitations - he’s an exceptional eater, but a terrible cook.
But today… Today I’ve rolled up my sleeves and spent the day conquering the domestic chores around the house.
We’ve had a bit of a triple whammy hit us.
Our cleaning lady and the laundry lady both called in sick with the flu on Friday. As a result, our house is a mess and we had no clean clothes.
Strike one and strike two hit us on the same day.
Normally, on Sunday morning between 9am and 11am, we have our weekly shopping delivered from Coles. We have a standing order sitting in our account and we make some modifications on Wednesday or Thursday, then Jamie completes the order.
He and I forgot to place the order this week, so we had no food in the house for the week ahead.
I’d gotten up early with the girls this morning, made them some breakfast and by 7:30am, I’d managed to rip my clothes off and crawl back into bed to try and snooze for half an hour while Jamie continued to sleep.
At 8am, Ms5 crawled into bed with us and told me there was no juice and no milk.
Jamie woke up and asked me if I’d placed the order for the groceries.
No sooner had the words fallen out of his mouth than Ms8 came into our room, stood at the foot of the bed and announced that she couldn’t find any clean underwear after having a shower.
At this moment, I was presented with a choice:
Tell Jamie to get dressed, we were going out for breakfast and taking the girls to buy some new clothes
Put on my cape and become “Domestica: Queen of Housework”
For reasons that I’m not quite sure of, I chose #2. I announced that I’d go do some grocery shopping for the week and then come home and clean up and do some laundry before putting on dinner.
Jamie looked at me like I’d sprouted a second head. He said he’d take the girls out while I was pretending to be the Queen of my Domain.
I had a quick shower, threw on some yoga pants, pulled on this cute tight t-shirt, and yanked my hair back into a ponytail. I drove to the mall for some breakfast and to do the grocery shopping.
I was like a woman possessed. After I had eaten and had two lattes, I went to Target to buy the girls some underpants and socks. I hit Cotton On and grabbed myself this amazing little seamless panties that I love but that the laundry lady seems to destroy very quickly.
I then hit the butcher and bought a roast for dinner because I’d decided to make a proper dinner. I figured since it was domestic day, if I was in for a penny, I was in for a pound.
Once I was done meat shopping, I attacked Coles with a level of ferociousness that I didn’t know that I had in me. I had my list on my phone and I just flew threw the place grabbing things and just moving like the wind.
I grabbed a bottle of vodka at the Vintage Cellars on the way out because I’ve decided that this evening, I’m going to get white girl wasted once the chores were done and the girls are asleep.
I got home, unpacked everything and like a tornado, I ripped through the laundry. I was sorting, stacking, loading, and unloading. I even knew where the detergent and fabric softener were and the difference between them.
While the laundry was doing its thing, I cleaned up the house and got dinner started.
I was a machine all afternoon. By the time Jamie and the girls got home, everyone had clean clothes, dinner was on, and the house was in reasonably good shape with respect to tidiness.
Dinner hit the table at 5:30pm sharp and plates were cleared and in the dishwasher by 6:15pm - just like a well-oiled machine.
I’m writing this at 7:30pm and I’m on my second Vodka Tonic. By 8pm the girls will be in bed and “mommy” will be pouring a bath at 8:30pm, hopefully with a good buzz on, and I’m going to be bringing in my waterproof vibrator to help me destress the day away.
The reality is that I’m not a domestic goddess. I had all the cleaning, cooking, housework, and nonsense that goes along with not living like a savage. I just happen to hate living like a savage more.
When your kids don’t have clean underwear and you could turn your fridge off without risk of spoiling any food, you sometimes need to step up.
Today, I stepped up. And in about an hour, I’m going to go masturbate my hopefully half-drunk self into a state of semi-conscious bliss.
And back into the fray tomorrow :-)