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I am an unnatural woman, according to the male expert on females with whom I share a home. Not because I admittedly have a mean streak as wide as a Sumo wrestler's belly. Nor is it because I've recently been advocating bombing everything from the Prospect Point observation tower to the Khyber Pass. Nope, the man in my life thinks I'm a wee bit lacking in feminine graces because I don't dust on a regular basis.
You know, as with a cloth, or one of those magnetized feather things that remove the dust of history from his 18-year collection of National Geographic's, my knickknacks and gewgaws, and books that once they go into a bookcase don't come out for a cleaning until we move. When we lived in Miami Beach, I swear he used to make me move every three years just so his Louis-Ferdinand Celine books didn't molder in Florida's humid climate.
Still shell-shocked by recent horrors, nothing made me see red this week. The closest I came was pink, as in pink champagne. So men, you may now stop reading this column. Because it's Ladies' Night at the Seeing Red Saloon.
Girlfriends, nowhere does it say in the Constitution, let alone marriage vows, that dusting is a woman's job. My beastly half and I are alleged to have a partnership in this living-together thing. Yeah, right. I clean the bathrooms, because I believe strongly that bathing in a tub with a couple of months of grime is unhealthy, not to mention unsavory.
I clean the kitchen every night, though I confess my current version of a cooking area is the size of closet, so there's not a great deal of work to be done. Still, no one should have to wake up to the clotted mess of unwashed supper dishes when they are trying to make morning tea, as is the time-worn custom of my dear babbling Brit.
I wash clothes, iron shirts and make sure there are clean sheets on the bed. Occasionally, when inspired, I even vacuum. But I only dust as a last resort, as when friends or family are visiting and the mere throwing down of a hat or a glove would unleash a dust storm of previously undisturbed particles. Dusting bores me. Even with the Dixie Chicks or Andrea Bocelli or the Leonore Overture blaring from the stereo, it is hard to work up enthusiasm for the job. I know I'll just have to repeat the chore in a few days.
I used to dust once a week. A regular little dust devil, I was. But the wisdom of maturity has taught me that the dust isn't in my way -- I'm not going to bump into it, trip over it or have my progress impeded in any way. And, should a feather duster inexplicably fly into my hand, the bloody dust will still be there tomorrow, next week and next month. So what the hell, I tell myself, why not do something interesting, like read a book, gossip with a neighbor, or in rare instances, figure out what I'm going to throw together for dinner?
Throw together being the operative phrase, and another sore point with my hapless, half-starved hubby. I am not a cooker up to his exalted standards. I was raised in a home where Mom was not only working full-time between raising four children, but she was 100 percent Irish. And to be kind to Eire's cuisine, the Irish did the best with what the Brits allowed them to eat. Mom makes glorious mashed potatoes. Still, my siblings and I always had nutritious meals, just not always tasty.
This was why we adored visiting Grandma Brown, a Cajun who could make tamales so spicy they made your eyes water, cornbread so sweet and moist you didn't need butter, and chicken with red beans and rice to die for.
Gran tried to take me in hand.
"Sugar girl," she would say as she put a meal together, "we all have to eat, so you pay attention." I have Gran's treasured recipes for pecan and rhubarb pie, but I have never been able to master her melt-in-the-mouth pastry. And apparently never will. I chose a career over being a woman who could cook with elan and clean with enthusiasm. And I don't regret a minute of it. The dust at my house will still be there next week, more's the pity. And next week I may be dealing with 3,000 inches of snow, giving me plenty of time to scale a stepladder to get to the top of the seven-foot-high bookcase in my living room to clean off the grit and cobwebs. More's the pity.
If I ever win the lottery, the first thing I'm going to do is hire a cleaning service. The second thing will be to hire a cook -- although my fading-away fop says that should be the first thing, by far. Meanwhile, I am not going to worry about dusting all those National Geographic's, a veritable dust heap of history dating back to 1983. As I've said many times to my own sweet sugarman, he needs a hobby, and I believe it should be dusting.
It is now closing time at the Seeing Red Saloon, so ladies, lift your glasses of pink champagne (I'm sticking with Scotch) and drink to the non-dusters in our ranks and homes. Then give them a dusting cloth. And if you get into a dustup over it, blame me.