Paul Richardson: The art of symbiotic relationship

In review, my multi-decade relationship with the good wife has been a mutually balanced event. While I am probably not an enlightened member of my gender, I do share and take ownership of many of the household chores. In like nature, the good wife takes on some outside chores that our neighbors would designate as “the husband’s job”.

This came to light in the early days of our relationship, when this tiny little nymph attempted to do my laundry. I have always preferred button-down shirts and in those days, I wore a lot of blue chambray shirts. 

One must understand that I had been doing my own laundry for at least eight years prior to meeting this girl. During that time, I had developed my own processes, methods, and preferences, including viable shortcuts.

As I bring the true details of the event to light, the good wife has a slightly modified version of the story, I arrived at a time when my clothing had been laundered and certain items, including the shirts, were hanging to dry. I never have and still don’t put my button-down shirts in the dryer, so as was my method, the shirts were hanging to dry. 

However, it was apparent that these shirts had been simply extracted from the washing machine and placed on the appropriate hanger and then to the rack, wrinkles, and all. 

In my apparent ignorance of how to properly establish and maintain a relationship with a girl that was definitely out of my league, I stated, “Thanks for the help, but I shake these out and straighten them to remove the wrinkles, thus cutting down on the ironing.” 

This is when I learned that: 1. She doesn’t iron, and 2. If I don’t like the way that she laundered my clothes, well, I could just do it myself! 

In defense of my case, one must understand that the good wife has abstained from the task of ironing since she left the residence of her parents.

I have been doing my own laundry, with that exception and only a couple of other exceptions, for the last, well now, forty-eight years. (Bless my dear mother for the years leading up to college.)

While that may have been the beginning of chores with no definition of gender, it is not the catalyst for this mental meandering. I was sitting after I had just completed the dishwashing, yes, dishwashing, my personal laundry, vacuuming, cleaning the downstairs bathroom, and certain other household chores are my unspoken but dedicated task, contemplating how the good wife and I share in many of the tasks around the homestead. 

While I have taken on the aforementioned items, she does all of the lawn mowing among other duties. This is not because I don’t like to mow, in fact I do, but my asthma and allergies propel this to a life-or-death event. 

So, the good wife mows the lawn, the neighbors drive by and then meddle with questions like, “So you make your wife mow the lawn, do you?” 

All the while they will never understand the Art of a Symbiotic Relationship!