Heating up the Hot Heat

A couple of weeks ago, a lovely blogger who is known as JCK and pens the blog, Motherscribe, posed the question, "How do you split up the family work in your home?"   For this topic, she was writing for The Huffington Post.  Yes, you heard me.  Side note:  I have actually met JCK in person, so this makes me feel almost famous.  She is lovely and well-spoken and sweet, but rocks the fishnets like no other, and enjoys her Jack o'clock now and again.

Back to the question:  How do you split up the family work in your home?

This one's easy.  I do it all, and nobody else does anything.

The End.

Kidding!  

One of the very best parts of coming out of the closet and accepting myself as myself is the fact that I no longer feel guilted or pressured into falling within traditional and expected gender roles.  And dammit I can whole-heartedly embrace my love for Madonna without shame.  I don't feel bad that I don't know how to fix the car.  I feel wonderful that I am terrible at assembling things like bookshelves or bikes.  I love that I can vacuum and cook and not once have to use a drill, although I have a few times, and it hasn't been so bad.  So I do what I'm comfortable with, and what I enjoy, Giancarlo does the same (he does all the laundry, and he's much handier than I am) and we pay someone to do whatever the two of us can't do.  It works out splendidly. (Although, would it kill him to clean a toilet?)

Funny, true story that happened this week:

During dismissal at my school, a lady in the parking lot was waving over to a group of us teachers standing in front of the school.  She kept yelling, "The guy!  The guy!"  It took everyone a second that she was referring to me.  "My car!  It not work!  The guy!"

Chuckling, I said under my breath, but loud enough for my all female work friends to hear, "That's funny.  All these girls here probably know more about cars than this guy does."  But I humored her, and my friends walked into the school because it was like 17,000 degrees outside.

English was not this woman's first language, nor was Spanish.

"It hot!"

"Yes, it sure is!" I replied.  Did she call me over to talk about the weather?

"My car hot too.  So I turn on heater."

"You turned on the heater?  Do you mean the air conditioner?" I asked.

"No, I turn on heater.  It make car cool."

I was befuddled as to how I was going to help those imploring eyes.

Then she pointed to the temperature gauge on the dashboard.  The engine was on its way to overheating, although it was not yet in that red zone.

"My father-in-law, he say to turn on heat when car get hot.  Then it no get hot more."

I thought this was preposterous. 

"I don't know much about cars.  But I wouldn't be turning on the heater.  It's 110 degrees out here," I pronounced wisely, as a drip of sweat trickled down my butt crack.

Now it was her turn to be befuddled.  A guy who didn't know about cars?  Unheard of, apparently.  "What I do?  I drive home?"

The school boundaries were not that big.  So I said, "I would."

"Uh, very well, thank you."

In the office, my friends were eager to know what this lady wanted with me, "the guy."

I recounted the story and we all had a good laugh.  The absurdity of it all...calling ME over, of all people, and then turning on the heater in the scorching desert sun to make the car cool down!  Bah!

That night I got a text from Lisa, one of the friends I was laughing with.  Turns out, her husband knows about cars, and turning on the heat to cool and overheated engine is EXACTLY what you should do.

I guess the laugh was on me!  I hope that poor lady's engine didn't explode.