Public Service Announcement – Part 1 – folding and hanging

I’m not a man hater, let’s be clear about this!

But… sometimes I hate what they do (or don’t do)

This ‘Bitch, please’ is about household skills, specifically about how most men don’t have them and apparently all suffer from the ‘old dog, new trick’ syndrome.

I was telling Jack, the man that I love, that it’s not his fault. Nobody ever taught him certain household skills, but even if someone had – it’s not in his DNA to remember it or apply it or just plain old DO IT! I also assured him that every man I’ve ever known had the same missing piece of DNA, so it’s not an attack against him personally.

We had dinner with a couple last night. Upon telling them of my intentions of posting this invaluable information, she chuckled and said that her mother-in-law has apologized to her for not teaching her son an ounce of these skills. She didn’t even try! As nice of a lady as she is, shame on her! My friend is not alone, so many of us hook up with men, fall in love and realize we live with grown children to care for. If our men do attempt to ‘keep house’ often times we need to retrain them as they do it all wrong! And don’t get me started with the whole “would you rather be happy or right?” bullshit, because when it comes to men using a dishrag to clean the toilet with, fuck yeah, I’d rather be right! Yes, there is a right way and a wrong way to keep house and if you’d like to learn the right way, pay attention!

This leads me to a phenomenon I’d like to call “I’m stupid, and I like it”. I remember sitting in counseling with my now ex-husband when he admitted that if he kept doing the wash wrong it got him out of having to do it. More recently I found out, when a big group of us were playing cards (insert peer pressure), Jack actually knows how to shuffle the deck! I looked at him and said, “What the fuck? I’ve been shuffling cards for you for 3 point seven five years because you said you didn’t know how, and you do it perfectly?” At this point my brother-in-law admitted that he has relied on the “I’m stupid, and I like it” phenomenon many times! Where is their pride? I could NEVER fake not having knowledge, nor could any other woman I know. Here’s another example of how men are unwilling to learn from the woman that they are with. Men blow us off, we find ourselves repeating our efforts and ultimately we are labeled “rags” because of our persistency. It’s similar to the card game story, because peer pressure is involved. I was leading Jack in his own private Nia class because he said that if he knew the dance moves better he might be more inclined to join me in the fabulous workout that it is! I thought, “perfect -we can stop to take the time to teach him what he was having trouble with.” Well, during our time together he did continue to move for one hour strait, and for that I was very proud. But, he would not allow me to help him, I could not teach him or correct him in any way. He would comment that he didn’t like a particular routine before we even began and chose to jog around the room when he didn’t want to follow along. There was no eagerness to learn – I was completely dumbfounded that our hour together played out the way it did. I didn’t say much, in that I didn’t want to discourage him from coming to class again. In other words I tempered myself. Here’s the kicker, another “what the fuck” moment… two days later we went to class together. Laurie taught it, other students were there. He watched her with such intensity and enthusiasm to learn, he followed her every move, he stayed with the routine and TRIED!!!! And, did very well, I might add. This reminded me of an old sales philosophy: the people that you know trust you, but don’t believe you. This is why bringing in a third party to inform your loved ones of things that you could easily teach them is crucial. Moms always bring their kids into my salon to have me, an esthetician, tell them to wash their faces – because I’m the third party expert – and for some reason, they begin to do it because I told them to!

So, consider this a series of PSA’s (Public Service Announcements) because I really don’t want to be a rag, I’m going to keep this “solution” oriented. You will be glad to know that Club Bitch is working on video blogs that men can refer to for these various skills. These will be especially useful for young men who really want to impress the ladies… sisters will literally throw themselves at you with these kinda skills!

In our video training I’d like to cover cleaning a bathroom, making a bed, keeping a linen cabinet and then choosing the right linen for the job. We’ll discuss subjects like ‘doing the dishes isn’t the same as cleaning the kitchen’, ‘hot, soapy water, an all purpose cleanser a wet rag AND a dry rag are all need to wipe something down’ and ‘nesting – why it’s important, especially in a small kitchen’.

Today we’ll start with folding and hanging clothes.

Towels, T-shirt, jeans and even boxer-briefs are all rectangular. Corners can be brought together very easily to create a square or a smaller rectangle, these can then be stacked with like items in drawers or on shelves in your closet. When your clothes are folded, sorted and put away correctly, you may feel compelled to keep said items folded and in order while searching for something to wear in between wash days, keeping your closet and drawer in working order. As opposed to this:

Let’s start with the easy ones: sheets and towels. Why is it when I fold a sheet it turns into a perfect oversized chicklet and when a boy folds a sheet it turns into a round wad of material with a four point fringed edge? The interesting thing is that women fold with ease, confidence and grace; but when I watch my sweetie processing it, it is done with such effort, panic and struggle. Remember- stay calm, concentrate on connecting corner to corner to corner, a little smoothing along the way and it’s done!

Towels are very similar. If you have a large linen closet then just fold the ends together twice, in other words: in half, then half again in the same direction- then just one even fold the other way to finish. Sometimes storage space is an issue. If that’s the case, start the same: ends together twice, then take that rectangle and fold it in thirds lengthwise to finish with a compact towel fold.

I’m going to wait on trying to explain how to fold a fitted sheet, as I don’t want to blow any circuits. When we begin our video blog I’ll revisit this.

Pants. It’s best to start the fold on your pants cheek to cheek so the front panel doesn’t get jacked up, especially if you intend to hang them on a PANT hanger, NOT a wire hanger! At this point you can fold them length wise once or twice to stack them on a shelf or in a drawer. If you intend to hang them make sure they are lying FLAT, centered on the hanger. So, start with the cheek to cheek fold, then use the skinny edge of your left hand as a hanger and drape the pants over it. Grab the hanger with your right hand and slip the legs through it all the way up to where your hand is and replace your hand with the hanger. If the pants get squirrely and wrinkled, don’t leave them like this! Simply take a moment to pull the edges and flatten out the mess. If you are hanging dress pants with a seam, grab the bottom of the pant legs and make sure the sewn seems (sides of the legs) all line up, this will help you discover the front fold seam. While holding the bottom of the the legs together in this manner with your right hand, slip your left hand down to the knee area. You can keep a finger between the legs to align them and keep the fold seam in order. Once you are there, hold tight with your left hand and bring your right hand to the back knee area. Now they are perfectly folded, slip your left hand on edge where the hanger will eventually be and grab the hanger with your right and slip it in as mentioned before, smoothing as needed.

I’d like to stop here for now. I hope that this ‘third party’ information will be paid more attention to than what you’ve been trying to get across! We’ll pick up with how to fold and hang shirts and jacket next week. Until then do your own laundry!

Have a bitchin’ day!

T-bone

April 11, 2010. Uncategorized.