A Rose By Any Other Name

I have recently installed a stat counter on this blog, just so I can keep an eye on you all you understand, nothing to be alarmed about, nothing, I assure you. Tum te tum te tum. Anyway, it has come to my attention that I may have chosen a rather unfortunate name for this blog. You see, Millennium Housewife was intended to imply a new wave of housewives, just like the housewives of yesteryear (who often used such words as yesteryear/gay to mean happy/frightfully/twin tub/hot dinner), except less inclined to cook/wash up/iron/bake/look after children/say yes dear. Oh no, the Millennium Housewife does none of the above unless she really wants to/is really good at cooking, instead she stays at home/starbucks waiting to pick the children up from nursery writing in her blog book (geek!) vast reams of copy for her blog that revolves around complaining about being the aforementioned housewife. This is, obviously, in between visits to Marks and Spencer/Waitrose to pick up ready meals, put them in a baking dish and arrange them so they look home made (mess it up a bit and add carrots usually, although leave out the carrots if serving creme brulee. Creme Brulee? Oh yes I make an amazing one. Aisle 4, Waitrose). Later the Millennium Housewife will serve her Husband a delicious meal, and when (as he is wont to do) he remarks on the general deliciousness of it all and the amount of toil it must have taken, Millennium Housewife smiles sweetly and simply explains that the magic ingredient is the extra bit of love (a love of ready meals especially).

The Millennium Housewife does do general child care/dog care/ Husband care, but when she does she acquaints her tongue firmly with her cheek and performs the tasks with a huge sense of irony. In this way she can tell herself that she has not sold out to feminism, could still be a suffragette (if she lived in yesteryear and was not very gay about being a housewife) and it allows her to use her best sarcastic lines on the entire family without fear of retribution (any retribution rearing it's head is met with a firm, I gave up my career to do this which usually does the trick). The Millennium Housewife then heaps Male Guilt (for suppressing us all those years you see) atop the irony and makes sure that Husband does his fair share of child care/dog care/washing/ironing and asks him to cook one night a week to give her a break from the delicious-meal-producing toil, it goes without saying though that no irony is allowed.

So, here I am, blithely blogging, imagining that you all got at least some of what the title was about (you did didn't you?), when along comes the stat counter and ruins my day. The stat counter, as one of its (free) services, allows you to look up all the keyword searches that have lead people to your blog, and therein lies the flaw. I was expecting (as I'm sure you all were) that the Google searches would be awash with such words as ironic/feminism/intelligent/doesn't really think she's a housewife. But no. It turns out that quite a few people are interested in housewives, apparently lots of people requesting dominant housewife/submissive housewife/sexy housewife/role play with housewife/nice round bottomed housewife/housewife who is strict are lead directly to this blog. I didn't know we had so many uses, or followers for that matter. Excellent.

The main worry obviously is that this blog is going to be a huge disappointment to anyone searching in this genre. Rather than the desired site of (I assume) writhing housewives dressed in next to nothing holding a whip/feather duster/spider man costume (it's all she could find, the kids have lost the key to the shed) they get a blog bleating on about being a housewife. Rather like a very long and boring bit of foreplay, with no satisfaction at the end.

So I suppose I owe anyone who has come to this blog with hopes of something a little more risque a huge apology. I am sorry, I didn't realise you see that I was supposed to writhe as well as buy ready meals. Oh dear. I'd better go and practise. Now, where did I put Jack's spider man costume?

Things I Have said To My Four Year Old Today

• Well, I'm not sure really
• I just don't know where God lives
• Well I don't think that he's a person
• A person, like you and me
• We are girls yes, but we're also people
• I don't think God is a person
• No, as I said I don't know where he lives
• Or even that he's a he
• Well he might be a she
• I don't think he's got a bottom
• Yes, I suppose that's how we'd tell
• No, I still don't know where he lives
• Yes it might be on a cloud
• Perhaps he lives in Maidstone?
• Maidstone
• Sorry darling Mummy was just being silly
• Maidstone's in Kent
• It's just a town
• No, I don't think God lives there
• Yes you're right, Aunty Margery lives there
• Well she had blue knees when we visited but I think they're better now
• And her wobbly lip, yes
• No I don't think she ever had six toes
• Yes she may have cut them off with scissors
• No God doesn't live with Aunty Margery
• Mummy just doesn't know where God lives sweetheart
• Yes, you're right he lives in Maidstone
• With Aunty Margery
• Well done darling
• God lives at 24 Beausale Rd, Maidstone
• Yes, in Kent

Soap Opera

We are being thrifty in the Millennium Housewife household, showing willing during the credit crunch and saving all we can. You never know, reuse enough tea bags and we may just make our mortgage payment this month. My Mother has been over daily with useful titbits and tips which has been exciting as you can imagine. Today she breezed in with her Jute Bag slung over her wrist and briskly ran a finger over the hall shelf. Dust dear she said, screwing her lips into that I've Eaten A Water Buffalo And I don't Much Like Your Foreign Muck look that only she can do. I was well aware of course that there was dust on the hall shelf, I've been cultivating it nicely, it's almost done now and is ready to create life of its own. Success. Anyway, My Mother put her hand into her Jute Bag (have you got a Jute Bag dear? Very useful you know, organic, whatever that means, Shirley-the-competition still uses plastic, I mean, plastic! in this day and age. Chuh!) You have to be very afraid when My Mother puts her hand into her Jute Bag, you never know what's coming and it's usually something hideous that she thinks will suit you because you're young/save you money/decorate your house in a style becoming to an eighty year old. Last week she pulled out a big, white, plastic toilet roll holder to hide your toilet rolls in the bathroom. It took a lot of tea and most of the biscuit selection to convince her that four toilet rolls stacked up in the bathroom looked more attractive than the box.

So, she put her hand into her Jute Bag and pulled out a see through plastic container with a cloth inside. This, she announced with an I've Practised In The Car flourish, is an e-cloth. One wipe and you're done dear, and not just those easy-to-reach dust areas, oh no, wet it and presto it cleans your bathroom too. Marvellous! But that's not all, oh no (here she winked at me, she'd obviously been at the Kleeneeze again), the best bit about it (she paused building the suspense/boredom) is that you need no soap! No soap whatsoever, she added, unsure that her announcement had created just the right amount of excitement. Think about it darling, she urged, you'll save thousands!

Thousands? Sorry, did I hear that right?If I think back really carefully, in minute detail, all the way back to my birth, I can honestly say that added up over the years I have never spent thousands on cleaning products. Any cleaning products, not just those that could reasonably be called soap. Really the annual saving would be about £8.92, and if the e-cloth is £22 it will take approximately two and a half years to start paying for itself, by which time it will have become raggedy and need replacing (by this time with inflation it will be selling for around £178.34). It would just be better I suppose to sack the cleaner, thereby saving £22 a week (I could easily furnish a weekly e-cloth habit with that) and do the cleaning myself. Ah, right, talked myself into a bit of a corner here haven't I? Look, let's forget the whole sack-the-cleaner fiasco shall we and go back to what a ridiculous product the e-cloth is. Ridiculous is what I say, la la la la la.

I took the e-cloth in its plastic container nervously from My Mother (once you take anything you're as good as saying, you're right Mother Dearest, and I shall be using the e-cloth/portapotty/special pastry lifter/Kleeneeze special gift daily, hurrah), and looked at it. E-cloth? I could do that! All I'd need to do is buy a pack of a hundred regular cloths from Asda for 24p, package one in a very environmentally unfriendly plastic box, cover said box with words such as eco/save/rainforest/fool/money/parted, hang it on the end of the supermarket aisle in the impulse buy zone and watch them flock. Simple, £22 handed over, cleaner paid for. La la la la la.

Twenty Reasons Not To Get A Dog

1. They steal your Granny's iced bun
2. They search and rescue empty cigarette packets from the bin and leave them on the floor, leading your mother to concluded that you have yet to give up that occasional cigarette habit
3. They rub their bottoms along the floor in front of your boss
4. They bark heartily at anyone under 2'2" but not at Big Burly Man
5. They attempt to mate with dogs blatantly too large to attempt mating with
6. They dig up your new turf causing the gardener to get cross and refuse your cake
7. They attempt copulation with anything, including your new Magi Mix
8. They chew your husband's used socks proving lack of any hygiene skills
9. They chew the buckles off your new shoes
10. They think that 'sit' means attempt to snatch the biscuit out of your hand in two alarming leaps
11. They enjoy watching you shout their name loudly and desperately across the park for several hours
12. They think your car is a portaloo
13. If you're camping, they will see it as an opportunity to eat raw sausages/show up your lack of dog control/bark steadily and consistently through the night at a volume only you can hear/use your car as a portaloo/sleep on your husband's head
14. They attempt to catch every fly they have ever seen by leaping generously around the kitchen knocking over your cup of tea
15. They rub their bottoms across the floor in front of your dad
16. They prompt many many questions from your children about mating/attempts to mate/mating habits/your own mating habits/general biology of mating
17. They eat the cork of the wine bottle thereby forcing you to consume the entire bottle
18. They attempt to mate with dogs that are blatantly too small to mate with
19. They crush smaller dogs in mating attempts
20. They cost you thousands in replacing small dogs

Things I Have said To A Waiter Today

• Could I have the chicken and avocado sandwich without the chicken?
• The same sandwich but without the chicken
• If you could just take the chicken out
• I know it comes with chicken but I don't want it
• Just forget to put the chicken in
• It might be on the chef's sandwich list but he could just pretend to forget couldn't he?
• OK, I'll have an avocado salad sandwich
• I know it's not on the menu, it's the chicken and avocado without the chicken
• I don't mind paying for the chicken as long as it's not in the sandwich
• Couldn't you just give the chicken to someone else?
• It's not unhygienic, I didn't mean serve me the chicken, let me remove it then put it in someone else's sandwich
• Could you just ask the chef?
• What do you mean there isn't a button for it on the till?
• Just press chicken and avocado sandwich
• I know you're going to forget the chicken but I'm happy to pay for the whole sandwich
• So the chef only reads the computer print out?
• Can't you go downstairs and tell the chef in person?
• Why won't health and safety let you walk down the stairs?
• How does the chef get down?
• Special rubber shoes, oh OK.
• You got me there.
• So you can only press chicken and avocado on the till and there's absolutely no way of telling the chef to forget the chicken?
• Could you phone him?
• No
• Just no?
• Oh
• Well then could I see the manager?
• You are the manager.
• Well then I'll just have a cheese and pickle sandwich.