Swembo Speaks
by geoffrey m. miller
© 2000 Miller Creative Services. All rights reserved
© 2000 Miller Creative Services. All rights reserved
mcsot0180
That thumping sound you are about to hear is me flogging my dead horse. Yes, it's yet another tale about my bachelor housekeeping practices.
One Christmas, long ago when I was married, my wife and I bought a sweatshirt for her mother. On the front, it said, "I'm not opinionated. I'm just always right." Truer words have never been printed on a piece of clothing.
Our nickname for her, (plagiarized from a British TV comedy), was 'She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed' or 'SWeMBO' for short.
Although Bob and Swembo are technically no longer my in-laws, we get along just as well or better than we did when they were. I mention that only to clarify that any comments made about her during the course of this story are not meant to be critical. They are merely observations with which no one-- not even Swembo herself-- would argue. Remember, she's not opinionated, she's always right.
For instance, did you know that all children under the age of twelve should be sent to bed by seven-p.m., even in the summertime? Well they should. In Swembo's world, dinner is served at 5:00. Not 4:48 or 5:03-- 5:00. One must always put the laundry soap into the washing machine BEFORE the clothing, not after. Thou shalt not dust unless first thou hast vacuumed.
"Yea, verily", she once said unto me, "To dust first is an abomination."
Bob and Swembo stopped by last Saturday. Bob and I were in the living room having a pleasant, manly discussion about piston rings, when a voice called down from atop Mount Sinai, saying, "GAWD! This place is DISGUSTING!"
O.K., so it wasn't Mount Sinai, it was Swembo from my bathroom, but the inflexions gave her voice that effect. Moments later, I found myself standing before the Good Housekeeping Inquisition, (Judge Swembo, presiding). Here are the transcripts of the proceedings:
CHARGE #1: The living room is no place to keep your lawn mower.
PLEA: Not Guilty. It is if it's the closest room to the front lawn and if the mower is too wide to fit down the basement steps.
CHARGE #2: There are cobwebs on your stove.
PLEA: Not Guilty. Well, O.K... technically, guilty. There are cobwebs on my stove, but they have a purpose: Organic Pest Control. During the summer the spiders eat the flies.
CHARGE #3: You dust before you vacuum, don't you? Confess! CONFESS!
PLEA: Dust? Vacuum?
CHARGE #4: I can't believe you only use paper plates and plastic silverware. That's lazy and bad for the environment.
PLEA: Is not.
COUNTER-CHARGE: Is so.
COUNTER-PLEA: Is NOT! When Ben left for the Air Force, I lost my automatic dish washer, my automatic lawn mower, my automatic cat box changer and my automatic house clean-upper. By avoiding the washing of dishes, I am merely supporting myself in a manner to which I have become accustomed. If that's lazy, then all of Donald Trump's ex-wives are lazy too.
Well, O.K.-- guilty, then-- but just to laziness, not to the environmental charge. The way I see it, using disposable dinnerware is much more environmentally-friendly than using traditional dishes. Here's why:
If a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to harvest it, it turns to dirt, right? After a few hundred-thousand years it ends up far below the surface and maybe turns to oil.
In my opinion, it makes much more sense to turn the tree into paper plates and the oil into plastic forks. I use them. I pitch them. They end up in a landfill. So what? The plates still turn to dirt. The forks last forever, but are much cleaner and safer than the crude oil they were made from. So there! And unlike you, I don't pollute tens of thousands of gallons of water filling my sink with dish detergent every night.
CHARGE #6: I can't believe you just toss your laundry all over the couch. It should be hanging in the closet.
PLEA: Not Guilty. I do that on purpose. Don't think of my living room as a living room. Think of it as a walk-in closet. The couch is my clothing display area. Unlike a closet, it allows me to view my entire wardrobe at a single glance. If I toss the clothes onto it just right, I can also avoid ironing.
CHARGE #7: One word: BATHROOM.
PLEA: Guilty as charged. I cleaned it once, a few months after I moved in. But it just got dirty again.
THE VERDICT: I must have a big, red "P-For-Pig" tattooed on my head. Swembo has spoken.
[Your comments are always welcome, c/o this otherwise
respectable publication, or E-mail to "outthere@westol.com"]
One Christmas, long ago when I was married, my wife and I bought a sweatshirt for her mother. On the front, it said, "I'm not opinionated. I'm just always right." Truer words have never been printed on a piece of clothing.
Our nickname for her, (plagiarized from a British TV comedy), was 'She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed' or 'SWeMBO' for short.
Although Bob and Swembo are technically no longer my in-laws, we get along just as well or better than we did when they were. I mention that only to clarify that any comments made about her during the course of this story are not meant to be critical. They are merely observations with which no one-- not even Swembo herself-- would argue. Remember, she's not opinionated, she's always right.
For instance, did you know that all children under the age of twelve should be sent to bed by seven-p.m., even in the summertime? Well they should. In Swembo's world, dinner is served at 5:00. Not 4:48 or 5:03-- 5:00. One must always put the laundry soap into the washing machine BEFORE the clothing, not after. Thou shalt not dust unless first thou hast vacuumed.
"Yea, verily", she once said unto me, "To dust first is an abomination."
Bob and Swembo stopped by last Saturday. Bob and I were in the living room having a pleasant, manly discussion about piston rings, when a voice called down from atop Mount Sinai, saying, "GAWD! This place is DISGUSTING!"
O.K., so it wasn't Mount Sinai, it was Swembo from my bathroom, but the inflexions gave her voice that effect. Moments later, I found myself standing before the Good Housekeeping Inquisition, (Judge Swembo, presiding). Here are the transcripts of the proceedings:
CHARGE #1: The living room is no place to keep your lawn mower.
PLEA: Not Guilty. It is if it's the closest room to the front lawn and if the mower is too wide to fit down the basement steps.
CHARGE #2: There are cobwebs on your stove.
PLEA: Not Guilty. Well, O.K... technically, guilty. There are cobwebs on my stove, but they have a purpose: Organic Pest Control. During the summer the spiders eat the flies.
CHARGE #3: You dust before you vacuum, don't you? Confess! CONFESS!
PLEA: Dust? Vacuum?
CHARGE #4: I can't believe you only use paper plates and plastic silverware. That's lazy and bad for the environment.
PLEA: Is not.
COUNTER-CHARGE: Is so.
COUNTER-PLEA: Is NOT! When Ben left for the Air Force, I lost my automatic dish washer, my automatic lawn mower, my automatic cat box changer and my automatic house clean-upper. By avoiding the washing of dishes, I am merely supporting myself in a manner to which I have become accustomed. If that's lazy, then all of Donald Trump's ex-wives are lazy too.
Well, O.K.-- guilty, then-- but just to laziness, not to the environmental charge. The way I see it, using disposable dinnerware is much more environmentally-friendly than using traditional dishes. Here's why:
If a tree falls in the forest and no one's there to harvest it, it turns to dirt, right? After a few hundred-thousand years it ends up far below the surface and maybe turns to oil.
In my opinion, it makes much more sense to turn the tree into paper plates and the oil into plastic forks. I use them. I pitch them. They end up in a landfill. So what? The plates still turn to dirt. The forks last forever, but are much cleaner and safer than the crude oil they were made from. So there! And unlike you, I don't pollute tens of thousands of gallons of water filling my sink with dish detergent every night.
CHARGE #6: I can't believe you just toss your laundry all over the couch. It should be hanging in the closet.
PLEA: Not Guilty. I do that on purpose. Don't think of my living room as a living room. Think of it as a walk-in closet. The couch is my clothing display area. Unlike a closet, it allows me to view my entire wardrobe at a single glance. If I toss the clothes onto it just right, I can also avoid ironing.
CHARGE #7: One word: BATHROOM.
PLEA: Guilty as charged. I cleaned it once, a few months after I moved in. But it just got dirty again.
THE VERDICT: I must have a big, red "P-For-Pig" tattooed on my head. Swembo has spoken.
[Your comments are always welcome, c/o this otherwise
respectable publication, or E-mail to "outthere@westol.com"]
