Have you noticed how hypnotic washing machines can be. The swish, swish of the clothes going round, the movement of the drum and the gentle whirr of the motor can soothe the most savage of breasts.
As you can tell,I like doing the laundry. There’s an art to it. Its not just about throwing in the washing, willy nilly with any old soap powder. You need a good quality powder and a fabric conditioner. The conditioners vital as it not only softens the fabric it also destroys any lingering odours.
My wife, Emma jokes that I have OCD.
“You don’t need to clean every day darling, once or twice a week is fine!”
“But you work so hard sweetheart. I can’t just sit around while you work all the hours god sends”, I say kissing her on the lips.
The house needs to be perfect. Next time you visit one of your friend’s homes look under the sofa or the bed and you will see dust, pet hairs and heaven knows what else. Most people including my darling Emma are Lazy, they clean the visible places but work on the basis that what the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve over, hence the filth under so many beds and sofas!
I always wipe all surfaces. You can’t be to careful about bacteria and other things. A damp cloth with just a trace of fairy liquid works wonders on the mattress.
Emma is so untidy. I’m forever picking up her shoes and storing them neatly on the shoe rack. You never see me throw my dirty underware on the floor but I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve found my darling Emma’s bra or knickers randomly lying under the bed or in the bathroom. I’m sure its true that women are generally more house proud than men. I guess I’m the exception that proves the rule.
Lots of Emma’s friends are jealous.
“I wish my Tom was like that” I heard Paula say only the other day. Emma just smiled and squeezed my hand under the restaurant table.
She’ll be home soon. One last tidy up before the lady of the house returns. The living room looks great. Its wonderful what effect Bees Wax has on the furniture.
Everything looks good in the bedroom. Freshly laundered sheets smelling of fabric conditioner and all the clothes neatly put away in the wardrobes, one wardrobe for me and another for Emma. Everything in it’s place, what a wonderful husband you are John!
How could I have missed them? A pair of Emma’s shoes underneath the righthand wardrobe, at the back by the wall. I vacuumed, I always do but the vacuum cleaner must have pushed them to the back without me noticing. Pick them up and take them through to the shoe rack in the hall.
Emma’s key in the door, I must go and greet my darling wife. What a funny sight I must be rushing to the door a pair of women’s shoes in my hand!
“Hello darling” I say putting the shoes on the little phone table just inside the front door and taking Emma into my arms.
“Hi sweetheart, its lovely to see you to” she says running her fingers through my hair. “Who’s are those? Hold on Jenny has a pair exactly like that, I was in John Lewis with her when she bought them” she says taking up the shoes. “Yes, I distinctly remember her buying these …”. She trails off her eyes boring into mine. I look away. Shit, to be caught out by a pair of bloody black stilettos when I’ve meticulously cleaned and tidied the house from top to bottom. Not stains on the bedsheets or lipstick on the wine glass but a damn pair of women’s shoes, oh shit!
Jenny fragrant with the scent of lavender, my beautiful Jenny kicking her shoes with gay abandon under the wardrobe and diving into bed. I love high heels. Jenny likes what she calls “sensible” shoes so she comes in stilettos to make me happy but leaves in flats. I remember her slipping on her “sensible” shoes before leaving. I didn’t think anything about the stilettos. Bang goes my marriage and all over a pair of fucking stilettos.
K Morris - Poet 
I think the art of washing your clothes is lost or never taught when you get into the military. When I joined in 1998, my mother taught me how to wash clothes properly by separating by colors and size. After I signed on the dotted line, that teaching went out the window along with my old identity prior to 9/11. In the military, for most of us anyway, we just throw clothes in the wash, colors and whites, and wash them that way. I can honestly say I have never had colors bleed off on to the white garments. Some have been unsuccessful with that tactic. I still use that tactic today, but when I think about it I will do it properly and the way I was taught. It’s a hard habit to break. I think I was able to overcome it once I separated from the military in 2006.
Right now my wife and I live with her mother in Albany, New York since our move from Maryland late last year. I have to tell you the cleaning habits here are awful and not the same as we did our house. We surely didn’t clean everyday due to our conflicting and demanding work schedule, but we surely didn’t leave things to pile up in the corner for months and years. Coming here, for a temporary stop until we get our own place again, was definitely an eye opener. I always knew how her mother lived, but the massive clean up I had to do in order to make room for us was just wild. The basemen was cluttered with unusable items and things that were lost for years and never touched. Now, with our living space in the same basement, you can hardly remember what the basement looked like. I have had to get my handy on to make this house look livable and proud to have visitors over. Thank God her mother is appreciative of the work I’ve done, but still a ways to go.
Speaking of shoes! My wife had shoes everywhere in our apartment in Maryland, but now with some in storage and thrown away, there not everywhere. Of course, now with a black lab, named Romeo, with his shedding and hair ending up in every crevice known to man, clean up here has really become the priority.
Certainly, when I was at college and university I just threw clothes into the washing machine irrespective of their colour or laundering instructions! For many years now I have paid a cleaner to take care of the cleaning, washing clothes etc so now everyone remarks on how nice my flat looks! I have a brindle lab/retriever called Trigger so I know what you mean about dog hairs. Having said that Trigger loses far fewer hairs than my previous four legged friends. Do you have a nearby park where you can walk your dog? I have one literally next to my home although, being a guide dog he goes everywhere with me anyway so gets plenty of exercise. I am sure that there are men who own heaps of shoes but it does seem to be largely ladies who collect them in huge quantities!
We do actually have a riverfront nearby, which is about 10 to 15 minutes drive from the house where Romeo gets his exercise. The trail, known as The Corning Trail, named after a New York governor, is very beautiful and awesome to walk down. I can’t wait to see what it looks like during the fall season. When you enter the trail, you are right on the banks of the Hudson River and you are approximately 350 miles east of Buffalo and 150 miles north-northwest of New York City. The trail goes a long way, but I can guarantee you we will not be walking to those places any time soon. I will actually have a picture from our walk two days ago, which will be a picture of the trail ahead of us, which also gave me some inspiration to go along with it. I hope you get a chance to view it later today.
I knew one guy in the military, when I was stationed at Ft. Myer in Virginia shortly after 9/11, and he had maybe every Air Jordan’s you can think of in his closet. Very cool and good guy, but when we were demobilized to head back home, he had to stay due to an injury he suffered playing basketball on base weeks prior. I don’t think I could every have that many shoes in my closet or in my possession, but I will definitely have t-shirts for days if I could find places to fold and store them. My wife has a lot of clothes too, but some had to get tossed during our move to upstate New York. Even with those clothes she had in the closet tossed in the garbage or given away to charity, she still has plenty of them with her. I suppose that is one thing we will never understand as men, at least for most of us.