A day in the Life of a ...

A day in the life of a …….homemaker.

On a normal day I would not have minded the term 'housewife' (po-tay-toes, po-tah-toes…what's the difference?). But today I want to make myself feel better about my occupation, hence the modern usage of the term.

Today was just one of those days! I overslept by about half an hour, and was woken up by my daughter (how is it that they watch Wimbledon and the Football World Cup but still manage to be up and about, whereas I watch neither but cant sleep because the "house" has not gone to sleep, and so cant wake up in time?). Anyway, I managed to send both of them out by 8 (cereal for her and upma for pathidev. Me? I like neither but couldn’t be bothered to make anything else, so decided to join the upma guy).

It was "maid" day (so more work for me too, something which my hubby finds weird) so I started off with detailed dusting and cooking. This was more or less completed when the maid texted me that she couldn’t make it. I called her up asking whether she could manage at least one hour, when she started "Ma'am, I had to go to the clinic, my kidney..."
"Okay fine", I said, and hung up (following the principle of speak no lie and hear no lie very seriously), thinking how is it that I manage only a cold and fever while they have such interesting health problems ("Aaspathri ku ponnen akka" back in India and here "I went to the clinic, ma'am". Again, what's the difference?). I smiled to myself, thinking like Miss Marple from Agatha Christie's books - "People are the same everywhere".

"Well, that’s it!" I said to myself, looking at the clock. I shall just clean the kitchen and vacuum the house. Look at the bright side, I told myself. I should be free by ten, and then yayyy, I could just sit with my PC. As if I would let such small things like the maid not coming spoil my day!

I put on some fast, groovy music (it should lift up my spirits, right?), and suddenly remembered that one packet of milk had burst open in the semi-freeze compartment of my fridge last night, but I had decided it could wait till the morning to be cleaned up. I cleaned the tray, threw the broken packet away, and removed the other packet of milk. And you won't believe it…the d*** thing fell from my hands, and the whole kitchen floor was flooded with milk. I had therefore lost two packets of milk in the last 12 hours. (10 Ringetts - that could have bought a decent meal for at least three beggars back in India. Sigh!)

But there was no other go; I had to wash down the kitchen now. I was still not too upset, and started humming along "un mela aasai dhaan" from Aairathil Oruvan. I have been humming only this first line (not able to catch the other lyrics) for the last three days, and I recalled with a smile that my dd had said in the morning "Amma, please just sing something else!" and I had argued " Hey, it is a catchy tune and much better than you going gaga over Lady GaGa, okay?" (How can anyone with a name like GaGa be a Lady? Huh?).

Anyway I threw two buckets of water and picked up the broom. But one sweep and the thing breaks (I am left stunned, staring at the handle in my hand and the brush in the puddle of milk and water). Oh my God! This is too much, I thought, but managed to clean up the mess with our Indian broom (sometimes nothing like our good old brooms, I thought very patriotically).


Sweeping away vigorously, I thought "Ye jeena bhi koi jeena hai, lallu?" Today, if they come in the evening and I hear "You are the queen of everything you survey, and the whole house is your kingdom" from darling hubby or "Amma, you are the luckiest…you can read, go online, download anything you want, watch television the whole day and all this with no restrictions" from my dearest daughter, they would surely hear a LOT from me. They had BETTER watch out!

"Why is it that there are such days?" I thought calmly, over a glass of juice, after all the sweeping, mopping, loading and unloading of the dishwasher and the washing machine was all finally done. The internet had played truant and the curry had a tad too much salt. Could it get any worse?

But I needed no one to answer that, it was obvious - so that you realize how absolutely LOVELY the other days are, you silly! As simple as that!

And as Kamalji would say, "See Mindi, you got a topic to blog on".

 

dear priya,

Sounds like you are one lucky working girl. Well to be really honest it is not So bad .this was just one of those bad days that are there in any occupation.only thing is it is SO monotonous ,never ending and dull.If you find interesting things to do in between it is okay.but a working womans life automatically becomes interesting ,i feel since I have been both places.
thanks dear for the first comment.

 

dear Aruna,

thanks for all those hugs and kisses dear.hahahah I needed them badly.only one of our kin will understand what I am talking.

put up a cheerful smile on the face and back ready to invite the the birds which had gone out in the morning back home in the evening.

hey that was really poetic. wish we were birds too,no sometimes.

you will get to hear oh looks like you are tired lets get dinner from out blah blah.

hahaha you are SO right.in fact since I had already written about it here so it went out of my system and that topic never even came about.today morning only both of them knew about my day.

. Especially when the servant tells you she will not be coming today becoz you are ready for her remove some extra work so that they will do all and go na......

servants? dont even talk to me about them. everywhere same problem.