Pet peeves

Something has been bothering me for a long time now. At what stage in the evolution of Mankind was it decided that women would clean up? This was surely decided by a conclave of the clan - males only - as what woman would have willingly signed up for a lifetime of subservience? I can picture the scene:

Man builds shelter from branches. Leaves fall off branches onto floor inside shelter. Man gives woman fresh branch and tells her to move fallen leaves to outside of shelter. Branch makes sswweeeepp sound as she pushes the leaves outside. First broom is invented and man observes pleasant area to sit and think, free of leaves. Woman sees more leaves fall and knows this will have to be done every day. And so housework is invented. But man should have made shelter without falling leaves. Well, that's my point of view.

Anyway, you know how the situation deteriorated to the point where even the most vile mess is left to women to clean up. The excuse is, "Oh no! I'll vomit if I have to touch that!" and so we just do what has to be done. Nappies come to mind here. And dog poop.

I returned home the other morning after a strenuous workout at Tai Chi and went straight to check my emails for work. The dogs had been locked in the house for some reason and rushed out when I came in. In the background I could hear Monty, the doggie, rolling energetically on the carpet as he is wont to do. But he seemed to go on for rather a long time and then came to do some more rolling on the rug in the passage near where I was working and I noticed that the carpet was covered in brown streaks. Even worse, so was he! I leapt up to investigate and to my horror, it was the worst - poop!

Without hesitation, I scooped him up and marched straight to the bathroom where I turned the taps on full blast and held him under to wash the worst off. Needless to say, he wasn't too enchanted with that. Still clutching the now dripping dog, I spotted a large lump tangled in the long hair of his nether regions. I dropped him into the bath and headed off for scissors and kitchen paper to do the dirty deed. No time for niceties - just clean the dog up. He was soon in a slightly more respectable state and I filled the bath with hot water and slathered him with shampoo. No gloves. By the time I had rinsed off the last of the soap and done some final trimming, I was pooped myself. It's very exhausting to bend over the bath for an extended period and I was working at high speed to limit the damage.

Having put Monty out in the sunshine to dry off, it was time to inspect the damage to the house - four smeared rugs and a large pile in the lounge - poor dog obviously needed to get out but couldn't. Having wooden floors and poor eyesight, I threw the rugs in the washing machine and got out the hot water and domestos - a thorough scrubbing twice throughout the house, just in case! That was enough exercise for a week. A final inspection carried out by sniffing each room individually resulted not only in hyperventilation, but an all clear siren!

Now if it had been He Who Can Fix Anything who had arrived home to find that chaos, I can guarantee that he would have been on the phone to me instantly, barking out orders to report home immediately, while he retreated to the safety of his garage until order had been restored. How do I know that? It's happened before. But that's another blog, another time.