You too can be a Desperate Housewife

My domestication was like a big slap in the face, I wasn’t prepared and it became the most overwhelming month of my life. Our house had been pretty much functional as an evening hang out, prior to moving in. But now that we actually lived here and had to adhere to marriage protocol, i.e. providing lunch and processing laundry, we found that we were missing thousands of items.

In order to grill our first chicken, I had to go to the supermarket four times. I now know, that only red onions are used for cooking. Well, someone should’ve bloody written that on the list. I’m not psychic. Also, I’ve become an expert technician in the inner workings of Gas-Electric combination ovens.

Needless to say, lunch consisted of sandwiches, eaten on the kitchen floor with 8 different instruction manuals spread around and a lot of peering into the oven. After much consulting with one another, as well as with the naked chicken, obediently sitting in it’s brand new oven dish, Henrietta was finally grilled by dinner time.

Doing laundry was also a big adventure. The last time I did laundry, was in Boston, in the basement of my building. I was 18-21 and excited about putting quarters into the big machine as it spun my clothes towards mountain freshness. I had moral support from Esmat, and we ate Doritos as the clothes dried and then played “Roman Times” with the bed sheets. This was usually done at midnight while normal people slept. After three years of waltzing around with underwear on our heads in the laundry room, we discovered the security camera.

In my new house, after a few weeks back, I received my new washer and dryer, an exciting house warming gift from my uncle. Finally, I can wash my own clothes and not drag a huge hamper sack home every Friday lunch.

Doing the first load of laundry took 5 hours. I spent 2 hours alone in the supermarket staring at all the different things I could put into my washing machine, and all the magical smells and cool effects that they would produce. After sniffing everything, I called Mama’s hotline, and discovered that Comfort was only a softener and not a detergent. After being mocked and laughed at, I bought all the right ingredients and went home.

The test drive involved towels and inexpensive items such as old socks and worn out tank tops. This process also involved a lot of sticking my head behind the machines to make sure everything was connected and that no water was going to gush out onto my kitchen floor and ruin everything.

According to the salesman, this washer has a sixth sense. Wonderful! This machine was actually designed and built to protect itself from the freshman housewife. It will pre-wash when it feels necessary and rinse and spin as it pleases.

“I have nothing to do with it, if your shirt is now 3 sizes smaller. Whirlpool did it.”

Choosing the linens was a very stressful time in my life. It was like doing the SATs. I would touch one fabric, then put it back in the plastic and open another pillowcase and inspect the stitching. Would it be weird if I put my cheek on it and closed my eyes? Can I open it up and snuggle with it for a while? Aren’t I entitled to a mini-simulation? You know, we are going to be sleeping together.

And as for pillows, I came from a bed that was a little smaller than a full size. However, it was populated with 8soft feather pillows. I HATE foam pillows. I want to kill them. They are offensive and insolent bastards and a punishment to your neck. No I don’t think I’m a princess. But my pillows have to be the way I like them, or I just sit up all night stewing in anger. You can imagine my horror when my lovely groom introduced me to his stiff foamy pillows, which he says he loves as opposed to the annoying feathery ones. Well fine then, I thought, we shouldn’t have a problem. If he doesn’t like my pillows, he won’t want to use them. Oh, how I was wrong…

Now that we are sharing a bed, jealousy has started to rear its ugly head. Although I only have four now, and he also has four, including his foamies from home, someone is starting to question the system.

“How come you have all the nice pillows and I only have these ugly ones? And why are you setting up your pillows around the edge of the bed, are you building a fortress?”

“They’re my pillows. And it’s a low bed, I don’t want any ants wandering into my ears.”

Well, it’s true, I can’t sleep with all this open space around my head. The other day I found a squashed ant, near my head. What was it doing??? Who squashed it??!!

Several times, Nayef was caught red handed trying to steal my color-coded pillows. I had a strict system of pillow case identification. You don’t want to know about the big identifying party that happened after laundry day when all the pillow cases were switched around. I sat there for 20 minutes cursing as I unstuffed and restuffed into the correct pillow cases. I did not rest until all my beloved pillows were back in their clothes.

“They’re MINE!”

Nayef loves Bree on Desperate Housewives, but he doesn’t realize that I have some of her crazy and none of her domesticity…

No pillows or husbands were hurt in the writing of this post