The Tale of the Undomesticated Woman

In cleaning out my folders, I came across this story I wrote when Jared and I first moved in together. It brought tears to my eyes thinking about those first awkward months we lived together. They were full of fun, tears, screaming and love. This is not the last you'll see of the undomesticated woman. I have a feeling a sequel is in the near future... Enjoy!

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One day a girl met her prince charming. He was handsome, intelligent and treated her like a princess. They fell in love, much to their surprise after a short time and knew that there was not another soul on the planet they were meant to be with. They didn’t live close to one another so they cherished the weekends in which they could share time together. When the man proposed, the woman knew in her heart that there was nothing more in the world she’d rather do than to marry him. They decided to move in together so they could be with each other more often. And that is where the fairy tale ends.

Men are stereotypically known as slobs, dirty, and smelly. At least that is the men that this woman was used to knowing. However her man was not like these other men. He had been independent for quite some time. He was clean, tidy, and loved order. The woman was aware of this and had no problem with it. In fact, she was very impressed at his desire to be so tidy when she first had met him.

The man knew that the woman had been living with her parents all of her life and knew it would be some getting used to for her being on her own. She came to the house with all her belongings and he welcomed her with open arms. They couldn’t wait to start their life together.

The man loved to clean and after a week’s time, the woman realized that he brought obsessiveness to a new level. The woman didn’t like to clean so it worked out somewhat well. However when the man didn’t ever stop cleaning, the woman started to worry. He would vacuum all the time. There was never a sight of dust anywhere and no shoes were allowed in the house. The woman wanted to pitch in and help but the man was so set in his way that whenever she would attempt to clean it was either already done or she didn’t do to his standards and he’d do all over again.

So she decided to let him clean and moved upstairs to try ironing. She hated ironing but needed to lend a hand somehow. When the man saw her, he asked if she was steam ironing. She had never used water in an iron before and frankly didn’t know how to. So he asked her to use water because the wrinkles wouldn’t come out otherwise. Being the stubborn woman she was, she stopped ironing his and just continued with hers without water. Then felt bad and began ironing his again. This time ironed with water for his but without for hers just to prove her point.

With the man doing all the cleaning and cooking, ironing was not cutting it for the woman. So she did laundry. There was never a problem mixing a blue shirt with a white one so she had done it on occasion at her house in the past. However when she began washing new colored towels with white clothes she was unaware of the consequences. The next day the man asked her about it and she wondered why. Apparently his nice white Polo shirt was now spotted pink, as where his jeans and underwear. The woman felt so awful and went out to buy him a new white Polo shirt, not realizing that the color would come out. The man got the pink out and ended up with two white Polo shirts. He was a good sport about all of this. He knew she was trying and although he liked doing his own thing, liked to have help once in a while.

The woman wasn’t cleaning, wasn’t ironing properly, and couldn’t do the laundry once with out hearing some sort of constructive criticism of something she had messed up. What else could she do? She hated to cook and really had no idea how to. Her grandmother was a spectacular cook and had taught her some dishes but beside that she was clueless. She made the man her favorite dish of penne alla vodka and he adored it. Finally she had done something right. Running on her success in the kitchen, the woman tried again. This time she served pork under cooked and made a desert out of fury without all the right ingredients in the wrong pan and managed to burn it. The man insisted he show her some things but out of stubbornness and pride, she refused and insisted that trial and error was the way she would learn to cook.

She hadn’t the slightest idea what to do with raw meat. She couldn’t possibly understand how to give things enough flavor but not too much at the same time. Frozen vegetables were too complicated for her not to burn. She had never worked a toaster oven before and didn’t realize it wasn’t made to bake bread in until it was too late. She had, on more than one occasion, preheated the oven with pans in it forgetting they were stored there and still was oblivious until the smoke alarm went off.

All she wanted to do was be able to please her future husband and be somewhat of a useful wife. One morning she attempted eggs and served him over cooked, hard eggs that had turned cold because of a timing issue with the toast. The man couldn’t help but smile because he knew she was trying. He insisted she made a good cup of coffee though.

She could never wash dishes because they made her vomit, but she worked through that issue because of her guilty conscious of not being able to do anything else. Washing the dishes with her head turned ended up being a good solution.

The woman looked at the man every day and realized how hard he worked at making the house clean and tidy. She appreciated all the gourmet meals he prepared for them. Appreciated all the things he did. She knew she might not be contributing too much even though she was the woman of the house. But if he liked to do it and did it well than so be it. At some point, maybe she would learn to be more domesticated but in the mean time, she figured she’d stick to the things she did well. Penne alla vodka, washing dishes with her head turned, and making her future husband coffee. She knew he’d love her domesticated or not.