Honey-Do the Dishes?

Look over yonder,
What do you see?
A new day is arising
Most definitely.
-Tommy James & the Shondelles
Crystal Blue Persuasion

"Honey, it's about time you did the lawn, isn't it?"

It was Sunday morning and I had just finished my coffee. It was a passing fantasy that after yesterdays plumbing job there would be no pressing matters for the remainder of the weekend.

I knew all along it wouldn't come to pass. I knew it had to be done and I had silently planned to take care of the lawn on the holiday. What ever happened to "resting on the seventh day?" A card carrying member of Club Honey-Do, I knew that Honey-Had-Better-Do it or I'd have no peace until Honey-Had-Done-It.

I have a small yard and it usually takes only two hours to do the job. Besides, by having it done before noon I'd be inside before the hottest part of the day. The grass had started to grow almost as high as my prized dandelions, I noticed to my chagrin. I saw that my neighbor's dog had been assuring my lawn had received the proper nitrates again. A lawn needs a good fertilizer, and I was thankful I had spotted his gift of nutrients before I stepped in it.

I began by trimming the hedges, the crab apple tree and the other two large bushes. Next I fired up the weed-whacker. In the Southern states this is referred to as weed-eatin'. Whacking or eatin', either way I trimmed and edged the lawn by the driveway and next to the house where the mower would miss. Both the hedge clippers and the weed-whacker are electric which meant I had 50 feet of extension cord to wind up when those tasks were completed. My newest cord could be distinguished from the older one because it had only three bands of electrical tape marking the times they were severed by the hedge clipper. The other had at least eight.

The roar of the lawn mower announced to the neighborhood husbands that some jerk was sending a bad message to their wives. Hey! Turnabout is fair play after all! At least I had waited until after ten in the morning. My front yard is what you hear called a postage stamp yard; it is quite small. In five minutes it was done. As I turned the corner to the side of the house so that I could mow the side of the house on the way to the back yard, I knocked over the lawn gnome. After I had righted it and continued, I could have sworn it was telling me what it thought of my carelessness.

Even though the back yard is nearly twice the size of the front, it is easier to mow as there are no shrubs or hedges. My own dogs earn their keep by fertilizing the back yard, which means I have to watch where I step back there also. As I had reckoned by the time I was finished and put away all the lawn paraphenalia, it was 11:35. I would be in and out of the shower before the big and little hands rested on 12 noon.

My wife was laying on the couch - asleep. She had fallen asleep watching one of those how-to-Honey-Do things around the house programs. This Old House and its ilk had caused me many a Honey-Do project on My Own House. Will Rogers never met Norm. After my shower I settled down at the computer and posted my escapades with the plumbing job the day before in the post "Honey-Doings: Trappings." I managed to catch part of the Red Sox victory over the Orioles on the radio while I surfed on one of my image scavenger hunts.

It was after four when I heard the dreaded word "will," which is always fraught with the follow-up words, "you do." What did Norman make or fix before she fell asleep? A spiral staircase? An armoire? An enclosed deck? A pirates plank for me to walk? Don't get me wrong, I believe it is only right for a husband to help around the house. But under the circumstances I was flabbergasted to hear "Honey-Do the dishes?"

No.322