Mr. Mom

Today I forwarded am email I got, full of random bits of advice. My Dad, who is rarely online, read it and replied that he was really excited to try the method for cleaning the lint filter on the dryer. This was not a joke. Dad has taken over more and more of the housekeeping duties over the last 20 years. It started when we moved from Germany to Maryland, and he began doing the grocery shopping at the military base where he worked because it was less expensive than the civilian stores we lived near. When he became a firefighter, he had more days at home than my mom, so he kept it up.

Dad has his special -- oh, let's just call it anal -- way of doing things. By the time I was in grad school, he was cleaning the bathrooms proudly. One day I came downstairs and saw a washcloth sitting on the kitchen counter. "Dad, is that the cloth you just used to clean the toilets?" "Yeah." "It's on the counter where we put our food." "Hey! Those toilets are the cleanest things in this house!" It was probably true, but I bet you'll hesitate now if I invite you over for Thanksgiving.

He has a sponge system -- this sponge for dishes, that rag for counters. And a towel system -- this towel for hands, that towel for surfaces. I mess it all up when I come home. It's great, because it usually ends up with him doing things himself if he wants them done right, and I get to do what I do best: Watch TV in the other room. Or sit at the table and tell stupid stories while he's trying to concentrate on getting a ring out of the cherry-wood island. Or anything that doesn't require a toilets-cleaner-than-counter-tops mentality.

Maybe it's military discipline that just sticks with a guy. My brother certainly is becoming more Dad-like that way. I'd just assumed it was latent genetics.

Anyway, Dad was quite appreciative of all the little household hints in the email. I wrote back to remind him not to forget the tip about placing a safety pin in your slip to keep your skirt from getting clingy. His response: "That's an old one -- been doin' that for years!" Apparently these are the pearls of wisdom a man picks up during fifteen years on the fire department. Those guys are all kinds of useful.