Jan. 17, 2007 – Originally published by CNC, Inc.

The Way We Are

Life with four males sure is challenging these days. We have three boys, ages 20, 17, and 7, and they are all living under this roof, currently. Add my husband into the mix, and I am the most out-gunned, out-numbered person you’ve ever met. My dad grew up in a house with three females, and for the first time, I understand his pain (he insists between the two of us, he had it worse).

Men do things differently from women – this is a proven fact. A bed made by a man looks like an unmade bed, but you could bounce a quarter off of a bed made by most women. We will walk around the bed nineteen times straightening the covers and straightening them again until they look just right. If we have PMS, this rotating the bed can cause confusion, tears, and dizziness, which is cured by three bowls of Rice Krispies.

When cleaning a kitchen, I generally like to wipe down the counters and return all food and dishes to the cabinets, turning off the lights when done. My husband uses a different technique – what I call the “line ‘em up” method of housework. He simply loads the dishes in the dishwasher, watches some sports on TV, and then pushes all remaining items backwards towards the walls, in neat rows. When I enter the kitchen some time later, the walls are lined with cups, saucers, jars of spaghetti sauce, Captain Crunch cereal, homework, Ritz crackers, car keys, and bottles of soda. These lines are, however, completely perfect – like a plumb line made of food.

Men have their own way of communicating, as well. I walked into the kitchen this morning and stumbled towards the coffee pot while my husband, never lifting his eyes from the paper, said to my son, “It’s not a rip, they say, it’s a tear.” A tear in what – the President’s plan for Iraq? The state budget? The ozone layer? My seventeen-year-old never looked up but said, “Yep. Looks like not many Pats fans in the stands this Sunday.” My husband grunted back, which I know means, “I know.” Now I was intrigued. “Go back a minute. A tear in what?” Turns out it was an athlete’s leg or foot or toe, or something.

The bathroom is a sensitive area for all wives and moms, but when you have four males in the house, sensitive turns to catastrophic. I have been known to completely flip out when finding one too many tiny whiskers on the sink’s countertop – my husband and older son shave every day, and their whiskers drop like raindrops as they blissfully shave away, apparently not seeing their facial hair all over my sink. (When I point out the tiny hairs, they shrug and talk about sports or guitar “gigs” or food). It takes a Q-Tip and some day-dreaming about life as a single professional woman living in a major city to get through cleaning all those little hairs up. The toilet, if I were not here, would frankly cave in on itself eventually, and sink into our kitchen, and then straight through to the ground, from sheer uncleanliness. I have to say, everyone appreciates when I clean the toilets (only the criminal truly knows how bad his crimes are) and as I am scrubbing them I am frequently 1) asked “how I am doing” 2) given flowers hastily pulled from the yard, or 3) invited out to dinner at Applebee’s. All I can say is, they can hit their mouths with popcorn and Cheez-Its all day long – but they can’t hit this large target? I don’t get it.

Lastly, men try very hard, and are awesome creatures that deserve our respect and love, but they don’t understand women and our need to watch our movies that we like. My husband is learning – he sold me on our new wide-screen TV by showing “Out of Africa” on it – but I had to trick him to make him see “The Notebook” (I might have told him it was a war notebook, kept by a journalist in bloody battles in WWII. I might have done that.) The boys, however, are more blunt: “This movie is so dumb. Why is Barbra Streisand crying? That guy Hubble is awesome – did you see his wicked awesome car? Why are you crying? Why does she care if he doesn’t want her to march in the peace rally – would you have gone, Mom? Snap! That house is so awesome. Why is she saying, “Oh, I hate the palm trees, I wish it would rain” and crying? Weren’t they just watching his awesome movie? She is dumb, but his car is wicked awesome. Why are you watching this?” That’s me, trying to watch “The Way We Were” with three boys milling around.

In conclusion, I think I’ll keep all these guys. They are the spice of my life, and add love and laughs every day. As Barbra Streisand in “The Way We Were” might put it…”Oh, but look what I’ve got.” Not that Hubble even understood her, but you know what I mean!