Tao of Scott

Hi Nichole,

Wait a minute, I got stuff in the dryer that needs to be hung out.

So I quit my bank job of twenty three years and became Kathy’s house boy. Actually I consider this to be a good career move with excellent prospects for the future, including a reduction in unexplained random full body muscle twitching, perpetual eye blinking, and my abject fear of the mail and the telephone. One time I decided to stop taking over the counter sleep medication and within two days I was breaking out in these amazing hives, thousands of raised, red, frantically itchy, lines crazily crisscrossing my back or shoulders or butt cheeks or in some kinda combination. I quickly resumed the medication and the hives disappeared. (Authors note: never stop taking your medications…ever). I am anticipating if not the cessation than at least a drop in frequency of rapid heart rate episodes. One time a 198 beats a minute (that’s like a humming bird or something) landed me in the emergency room. After a three hour examination, an hour and half of which left me alone in the room while the doctor and everybody else affecting an appearance of being of the medical profession went out to study the results of myriad tests having been recently run on me ( I could hear rushes of laughter coming from a near by but unseen room) the doctor returned and suggested this curative approach to my problem. “Jesus man take a pill” he said. It seems, after visits to my primary care physician, two cardiologists, and a gastro-intestine specialists that my “problem” could likely be cured by a lobotomy but a full decapitation should not be ruled out.

Kathy, though never one to stand in the way of my hair brained schemes, found outside corroboration that my temporary retirement was a good idea when, while on hunting and gathering mission at Safeway, she overheard two women discussing their absolute glee at the recent change in their respective husbands’ employment status. They were laid off. This giddy exuberance was due to the fact that much of the household maintenance drudgery was miraculously being removed from their purview. They figured that if they could just pickup some extra hours at what ever salt mine they were slaving at they may just keep their husbands unemployed. So the wives would rather labor in the fast paced world of commerce and the husbands would rather do the dishes, maybe some laundry, take the kids to their various heaps of activities designed to exhaust them so by the time they get home they are too beat to engage you, the parent, in endless conversation about stuff you couldn’t possibly give a shit about, and take the dog to the doggy park. What the fuck is up with doggy parks? You sit on a park bench under a gazebo surveying a vast expanse of steaming dog shit and watch your Pomeranian get gulped down by somebody else’s Rotweiller.

“So ok I‘ll do the laundry, wash the dishes and make the bed. In addition I would like to remind you that I do the floors, do all the dusting and clean the bathrooms.” Actually I subcontracted these duties out to a house cleaner who comes over twice a month. “Since I pay for this service out of MY MONEY it’s as good as me doing these things myself. Just because I am not personally experiencing the misery which so often accompanies this type of household brutality at least YOU don’t have to do it. So, you know, there’s that.
Oh, and just so we’re clear, I do not cook (Kathy agreed that that was probably the better idea) and I DO NOT GO SHOPPING.”

Kathy handed me a piece of paper with many items listed on it. “Here, I need you go to Costco and get all this stuff.” She turned and glided away to her office to finish up the final details of her PAYING JOB.

“Shit” I said.

Love,

dad