Fine Lines

Why I Need a Wife

(Jane Schlosser)

In a perfect world, every woman would have a wife. Unfortunately, there is no such world, but I still need a wife. I have asked for a wife for years. Every time my family says, “What do you want for your birthday: Mother’s Day, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, or Easter.”

I smile and respond, “A wife.”

They smile sweetly and respond, “No, really, Mom. What do you want?”

I do not understand why they will not believe me. I am very serious. “I want a wife!”

I want someone who will sort, wash, fold and put away the laundry, so I can pretend these things magically appear in their proper place on a weekly basis. If she could mend and iron, that would be even better.

One Christmas, I included my own letter to Santa along with the children’s letters. It was not a long letter, only one request, but he did not answer. I am not sure if Santa thought it was a joke or he forwarded it and my request was lost in transit.

My letter read: “Dear Santa, All I want for Christmas is a wife. I have tried to be good, and I could sure use the help. Thank You, Jayne. P.S. If you cannot help me, please, forward my letter to Cupid, the Easter Bunny, or my husband.

Nothing! That was the Christmas when I could have used a wife to take care of all the baking, decorating, grocery shopping, help with towels, and changing sheets because we had non-stop company from Thanksgiving through mid-January. Even the dogs were beginning to get confused as to who lived in the house.

That was the Christmas when there was no Christmas Eve night because I had to finish the Raggedy Ann doll and her clothes that Santa promised my daughter, his elves were on strike, something about being overworked, and I got a message I would have to fill in. I started Christmas Eve morning baking breads and pies. Then I moved on to all the other normal meals that happen when you have company to entertain. Since they were there for the entire holiday, there was never a break in food preparation and clean up. Along the way, I also had to fix the special meals and breads that are part of our family traditions. A wife would have been very handy, as she could have planned activities, cooked meals, entertained everyone, and fixed snacks, while I worked on the doll. Thirty minutes after the lights finally went out on Christmas Eve, the lights came back on, and the children announced Santa arrived, and we needed to get up so Christmas could begin. I really wish Santa would have made an effort to come while I was still up, I could have used some help wrapping the last of the presents. Once we were up I headed back to the kitchen to cut and put out all the homemade breads I took out of the oven two hours before. Of course, once the presents were opened and everyone got dressed, I was in the kitchen cleaning up the dishes. A wife would have been nice because I could have been the first to shower while she cleaned up, prepared the stuffing for the turkey, and got all the meats and cheeses ready with the other munchies that everyone snacks on while they wait for dinner. Instead, I got dressed around 2 p.m., and everyone complained I was not taking part in Christmas.

Holidays are not the only time I hear I am not taking part. Having a wife would mean I could watch an entire movie with the family because she could answer the door, let the dog in and out, answer the phone, and take messages.

If I had a wife, I would not have to listen to the moans of “There’s no food in the house.” She could plan meals, write grocery lists, and deal with leftovers that seem to multiply in the same way wire coat hangers multiply in the dark. I think refrigerators should be required to come with see through doors and continual interior lighting so you can keep track of which leftovers are breeding and see when the apples attack the grapes and cause them to go mushy. Speaking of mushy, if I had a wife to handle food shopping, preparation, and clean up, I would be free to determine why cucumbers and celery go soft 20 minutes before you need to put them in a meal.

I have been married for twenty-nine years and have not worked, that is what people say, for twenty-eight of them. Twenty-three of those years I was a stay-at-home mom which translates to “You don’t work? Good! You can help me with this.”

I think the terms “stay at home” and “non-working” when attached to the noun Mom should be outlawed. It has been my personal experience that being a “stay at home, non-working” mom means I’m never at home, and I never have time to get anything done. I need a wife so the cleaning, cooking, and laundry get done while I run around helping, supporting, volunteering, and supervising the various groups, activities, events, and children who need me because, “You have free time since you don’t work, and you don’t have anything important to do.”

Another thing I detest is filling out forms, because I do not know what to put in the “occupation” box. “Mom” or “wife” gets the response, “That’s not a job. What do you do?”

Once I unclench my jaw, I start to explain what I do, and these people say, “I see. You’re a housewife.”

I really hate that word. I do not recall marrying a house. I am sure I would remember that, especially as I hate doing housework. If I complain about that term, they smile indulgently and say, “We will put down domestic engineer.”

What is that? An engineer is a highly paid technical job. What kind of education do you get to be a domestic engineer? Are there foreign engineers or undomesticated engineers, and what kind of degree do you look for when you want to study to become these engineers? Do people really think putting domestic engineer on the occupation line makes up for the lack of respect being a stay at home mom gets in society? If you are going to call me a domestic engineer, I want the salary an engineer gets, because my current salary really stinks.

I have finally solved the problem of the occupation line on school forms. I write “slave.” Then, under hours, I put “24 hours a day, 365 days a year, on call at all times, no vacation.”

My daughter read her form and told me, “But Mom, you’re not a slave. You are more like a maid.”

I patiently explained that a maid gets a salary, has regular working hours, and gets not only time off but also gets vacations, has opportunities for pay raises and can change jobs, if things are not satisfactory at the current position. After my explanation, her younger brother looked at his form and then told his sister, “No. Mom’s right. She is a slave.”

If I had a wife, I could put “boss” on the occupation line. A wife would deal with the sales people who call on the phone and do not understand the word “No.” She could answer the door and chat with the people who want to sell you the all-purpose cleaning paste or argue religion with the Seventh Day Adventists so they feel they have done their job. Meanwhile, I would be free to read my book or continue working on the quilt I started when my eighteen year old son was two. His sister picked out the colors for her bedroom, and she kept telling me she had hopes the quilt would be done by the time she and her husband were ready to move into a house and come get her bedroom set in eighteen months. Maybe I can promise to have it done by the time they decide to have children. That means I have three years, and if the first child is a boy, I can get a couple more years of quilting time.

If I had a wife to take care of balancing the checkbooks, scheduling appointments, and coordinating everyone’s activities, I would be free to do things like update the baby books, if I can remember whose is whose. I did not have time to put their names in them. I could get the two book-size moving boxes out and put all the photographs in albums. Hopefully, no one will notice there are no names or dates on the backs. Having the names of places and people from long ago is such a waste, after all; no one remembers any of those people anyway. Besides, I figure unlabeled pictures allow you to play parlor games like, “Guess who is in the picture?” and “Do you remember going to this place?” when everyone is bored or the power is out and you can not watch TV or play on the computer.

Having a wife around to handle paying bills; sending out birthday, anniversary, sympathy, get well, Mother’s Day or Father’s Day cards, and do general correspondence means I could get the Christmas letter written and mailed before Valentine’s Day.

I would have my wife deal with sorting through the clutter and junk that accumulated over the years, and my husband could stop worrying about my hoarding disease. Then, when she threw out the ugly golfing monkey statue my mother-in-law made and gave us one Christmas, I could not be pressured into letting my son put it in his bedroom, after he convinced his dad it should not be in the TV room anymore.

A wife would go downstairs and make storage room for my New England snow village boxes by giving away the two boxes that hold the twelve-piece place setting and serving pieces of pink desert-rose dishes that my mom gave to me. “I’m tired of them, and your sister doesn’t like them, and I can’t give them to your brother and his wife, and really. They’re too good to just give away, so I’ll bring them for you to use when I come next week.”

I hate those dishes! I hated them when I was a child, and unlike broccoli, which I learned to like when I became an adult, I still hate those dishes. I tried to give the dishes a fair chance. Once they arrived at my house, I used them for three months, but finally realized I had to box them up when my husband came in one evening while I was setting the table and asked what was wrong. I told him nothing was wrong, and why did he think there was a problem?

“Well, the loud banging is making it hard to read the paper, and I really don’t think the children like to hear you swearing. They have turned up the volume on the downstairs TV.”

That evening after dinner, the dishes found a new home in China moving boxes. I wrapped them nicely in foam sleeves and gleefully shoved them in the boxes. Those stupid dishes are still around “in case we ever need to entertain a large group.” Whenever we entertain large groups of people, we use paper plates and cater in food in throw out serving containers. No way would I drag out breakable China .

My wife would understand these things and send the pink dishes off to find a new home. Then when my mom asks about them, I would be able to say, “Oh, Mom, it was so awful. My wife got rid of them without checking with me first.  I’m so sorry.” I would giggle and do a little football victory dance, as I hung up the phone.

Having a wife at home to wait for returned calls, delivery people and repairmen would mean I could spend the afternoon at the movies. I could go on road trips, to see out of town quilt shows and not have to worry that no one was home to make sure the children got to their after school dental appointments. I would be able to go to track meets without whispering, “Run faster. Run faster. I didn’t plan a crock pot supper, and everyone will want to eat before the 10 p.m. news.” A wife at home preparing a hot meal for me to enjoy would allow me to smile at the cross country meets, in spite of my soaking wet clothes and mud-caked sneakers. You do not call off a race if the rain has not been falling at least 24 hours.

A wife would run errands, and she could deal with, “Since you are going to be out, could you do —-?” I would be free to window shop or explore unique stores without the pressure of a long list of errands.

I would love to have a wife to be there when things like flat tires, blown transmissions, and broken appliances happen. She could listen to the outbursts of anger, frustration, and implied accusations that she is somehow responsible for the problem. She can take the heat, and I won’t spend time angry about the stupid outbursts over things I cannot control.

Frankly, I think a wife should be standard equipment for any woman, but particularly for women who choose to marry and then raise a family. I think part of the marriage vows should include a promise, on the part of the husband, to find a wife for his wife when she determines she is in need of one. Another possibility is to include a wife as part of the things that need to be obtained when you start a family. Shower gifts could include: baby bed, stroller, diapers, changing table, wife, baby clothes, play pen, etc. I firmly believe if a woman doesn’t have a wife by the birth of her first child, then the only shower gift she needs at the time of the birth of her second child is a wife.

Maybe, in the future, women will be equal to men and will have wives of their own. I hope I am around to see that day, because I will definitely be in need of a wife by then to help me remember where I put everything that I tucked away for safe keeping.