R.I.P. Hideous T-Shirt

My husband has a t-shirt that someone gave him to celebrate his Master's Degree. It is navy blue with white letters that say "Da Yoopers School for Da Truly Ungifted." Yeah, ha, ha, ha. I guess that was funny at one time. Anyway, the shirt has deteriorated to the point where there are huge holes under both arms, it has permanent stains of unknown origin, the hems along the neck and arms are shredded, the front is attached to the back by threads, and the holes along the collar are so big the tag just falls out the other side.

I hate this shirt. It is stretched out completely and just hangs on him like a rag. Worse than a rag. Every rag I have is in better shape than this shirt. Still, he insisted he liked it and it was "comfortable" to wear with his lounge pants around the house. (Even he would never wear it out in public.) I don't know why it would be any more comfortable than the other 37 worn out t-shirts he owns, but whatever.

I did not have the heart to throw it away, but I did hide it. Whenever he wore it I would wash it (hoping it would disintegrate in the washer) and then hide it way in the back of another drawer. Out of sight out of mind. But he always found it again. (Drat!) Seriously, he looks worse than a homeless person in this hideous thing. The Salvation Army would reject it. The naked savages in National Geographic would not even recognize it as clothing. It's bad.

Don't believe me? Here it is:


This photo doesn't do justice to the holes, but you get the idea. This morning I woke up and it was draped over a chair in the bedroom with a sticky note on it (as you see in the photo.) The note reads, "Do Your Worst." He's giving in. The t-shirt can be put out of its misery. Saints be praised!

So what should I do with it? He is not really the sentimental type, so I don't need to save it and turn it into a wreath or some bullshit. I suppose I could keep it for really yucky clean up jobs where you just want to throw the rag away. The point is, I never have to see it on him again, and it wasn't a battle. He just realized I was right and gave in. Smart move, Baby.

The Difference Between Men and Women

I should be studying for tomorrow night's Economics exam, but I am frantically cleaning because a woman is coming in the morning to assess my worth as a human being.

Well, actually she is coming to assess the value of our condo for a re-finance, but as any red-blooded American woman knows, she is really coming to JUDGE me and and the home I keep.

This is the difference between men and women. When the folks at Wells Fargo said we needed an assessment, Husband said "Of course. How soon can you get here?" I started wondering if I had time to buy new color-coordinated plastic bins for the closets and garage. (I don't.) When we tell men we're refinancing they say, "What rate did you get?" My mother's first words were, "Make sure the carpet looks good."

So today I did the normal dusting, vacuuming and cleaning the kitchen, but I also washed the floors, cleaned the bathrooms including the shower doors (yea for Mr. Clean Eraser!) and vacuumed the dust off the fans on the bathroom ceilings, which I usually do approximately never. I know she's gonna look up there. I also stashed half the crap on the kitchen counters into the cupboards so it looks neater and did all the laundry so there won't be a basket of dirty clothes in the closet. (I'll probably do one more in the morning with our clothes from today. I'm not even kidding.)

The biggest and most important project of the day, which I am almost done with, is using Scott's Liquid Gold on all the woodwork, doors and cupboards. If you don't know, this stuff is indeed worth its weight in gold. You spray it on a cloth and just lightly wipe the wood, and it cleans it and makes it look beautiful and glowing - not shiny or sticky. According to the can, it "restores and enhances wood's natural color, grain and luster; removes dust, deep cleans and replenishes moisture; helps protect against cracking, warping and fading; and hides nicks and scratches." I don't know what's in it, but it smells like almonds. So the assessor lady is either going to say "My! What beautiful wood!" or she's going to think "Jesus, these people drink a lot of Amaretto."

The lady is coming tomorrow at 8 a.m. EIGHT O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING. Cripes. So Husband will wake me up when he leaves for work at 7:00 and I have one hour to do the last-minute things like make the bed, Windex the bathrooms again, replace the ratty towel Husband refuses to throw away with a new one, and throw all the clutter into covered baskets. I also have to remember to remove or at least turn around the tube of foot cream I have in the shower. It's a great product called "Toe the Line," on which my 45 year-old husband wrote, with a Sharpie, the word "Camel." SIGH.

During that precious hour I also have to make myself look presentable, of course, and drink enough coffee to appear coherent. At least when she's gone I will be up and ready to study for the whole day.

You may think I am over-doing it, but I want this woman to write on her clipboard "A+! This is the most well-cared for home I have ever assessed!" Face it, women are afraid of how other women judge their housekeeping skills and will do anything to appear better homemakers than they really are. Men do things like write "camel" on a tube of "Toe the Line."

Distracted by...Feeding the Husband

My husband is actually really easy to keep happy. He just wants a decent sandwich for lunch and meat and potatoes for dinner. (Well, and some other stuff, but this is a PG blog.) He's perfectly capable of making a sandwich, obviously, but I like to do it for him. Lately he's been announcing his hunger in a very dramatic fashion, by listing into the room, hand to forehead, falling onto the bed or sofa, and wailing, "Woe is me! Will NO ONE make me a sandwich?" It's pretty damn funny.

So here's the thing. He likes mayo - a ton of it - on his sandwich. In an effort to make him something slightly healthier, I bought the Kraft Mayo with Olive Oil. I hid it (right smack in the middle of the fridge, so there was no chance he would see it) and the first time I used it I didn't tell him. I just asked how the sandwich was, and he said "great!" Then I told him it was not his regular full-octane mayo, but the olive oil kind with half the fat and calories of regular mayo. He said it was good, and so with that official endorsement we just got a little healthier. Baby steps, people, baby steps.