Normally I’m all feminist and shit, in case you were wondering. Not like in-your-face feminism or anything, but it’s in there. I vote it, I think it, I teach it to my children, occasionally I talk about it, I live it. Every so often I become outraged over it and shake my fists at stuff. I know the entire song about Woman’s Suffrage from Schoolhouse Rock.
Of course I know the lyrics to pretty much all the music I’ve ever heard since childhood, but still.
All of this makes the crap I put up with at my job that much more shocking.
A few days ago I came home and realized that although we have been mowing our lawn every week, it had been many weeks since we had weed whipped it (or weed whacked for those of you who prefer that terminology, we like to call things by strange names around here). All of my flower beds (and in some cases, weed beds) are edged by large boulders and rocks so the mower can only get so close. Normally THE MAN handles the whipping, but as I’ve mentioned ad nauseam, he’s been abroad, and then we’ve been up to our eyeballs in mineral wool insulation (itchy), drywall (heavy), and paint (causing carpal tunnel, I’m pretty sure).
In answer to my complaining about the lack of whipping, my husband gave me a quick tutorial on using the whipper machine. Let me just stop here for a second for a WTF.
WTF, dude?!
Let me tell you how pathetic it was when I came home from work the next day and whipped the edges of my yard (of which there are trillions, I’ve decided). It was the very first time I had ever whipped a yard, and I expected it to be tedious, but not horrific. I was wrong. It was horrific. I had to take breaks; like, as in to set down the whipping machine so that my arms would not fall right off of my torso. A lot of them. It was embarrassing, and I’m pretty sure the neighbors were all in their windows pointing and laughing. I was excited when the evil stick ran out of gas. Then THE MAN filled the damned thing back up while I wasn’t looking and left it for me to finish while he took my girl to the library.
Whippers are not made for short people, I decided. I tried to pass along that little tidbit of information, but THE MAN claimed that it’s just as difficult for him and he’s much taller than me. I’m not buying it. I had dirt in my hair. In all of it. I don’t think that he has a 1:1 ratio of dirt to hair on his head by the time he’s finished whipping.
When I tried to eat my dinner, I complained the entire time that I couldn’t lift my arms. In my whiniest, saddest of voices. I couldn’t. Lift. My. Arms. Got no sympathy, as usual.
THE MAN tells me “you don’t have to do it every week.” as if I will ever be whipping anything again. Silly thing.
Man’s work. For reals.