Deseret News Archives, Wednesday, December 28, 1994
“Now that we're both working,” my best friend Golda told her husband, “You’ve got to do your share of the housework.”
The way she described it to me over lunch one Saturday, her spouse couldn't understand why her face took on the color of stewed tomatoes as their discussion evolved.
“OK,” Hasbin said, “I'll make the bed sometimes. “And,” the man grew magnanimous when Golda started to choke, “I’ll change the toilet paper roll every other time.”
“But what about the dishes, sinks, and walls?” Golda sputtered. “What about the oven, and the microwave and fridge?”
“What about them?” Hasbin asked.
“Well, they get dirty too,” Gold said, her voice as hard but not nearly as pleasant as a Jolly Rancher.
“Are you going to do your share or not?”
Alright!" Now Hasbin’s voice was hard. After all, he explained he had no objections to doing his part as long as he knew exactly what was expected of him. “Just how much of all that is my share?”
“Half.” Golden closed her mouth like a steel trap. “You do fifty percent and I'll do fifty. That way we can keep the house clean, hold down our jobs, and be equally overworked.”
Hasbin sighed. “Sounds fair enough to me.”
Naturally, Golda was ecstatic. Somehow, she had expected to run into a little more resistance in her attempts to even out the pressure she was feeling to keep her house in together without falling apart herself.
“Of course,” she waivered, stuffing her Big Mac wrapper into her empty Coke cup. “Seeing is believing. I’ll know for sure when I get home today, whether or not my so-called better half is willing to shoulder his half of the load.”
“Let me know, how that goes,” I responded.
Anxious to find out, I called my friend at work the very next day.
“Well?” I asked as soon as she answered the phone.
“Well, what?”
“Well, did your hubby follow through on doing his share of the housework? Is he still committed to doing fifty percent of the chores?”
“He sure is!" Golda sounded tired. “This morning he got up and made his side of the bed!”
