Friday 31 October 2008

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?

31 comments:

Potty Mummy said...

You want to try having a blog titled 'The potty diaries'.

'Nuff said?

Nota Bene said...

Oh, do they really do ready meals in Waitrose? I didn't know....

...and now you've added all those other words into your blog, you should find yourself getting lots more exotic visitors!

Anonymous said...

You might end up being called 'ASBO Housewife' if you try too much writhing in Waitrose!

Devoted said...

LOL! Another GREAT blog! I for one am never disappointed!

Being recently "retired," I am just now trying to teach myself to cook. My mom says that if I can read and follow directions, I can cook...but...I beg to differ! I have resorted on many occassions to the "ready meal" with my husband none the wiser. Have a great weekend!

Irene said...

Life is such a disappointment, you know? It's never the intelligent lot that finds us, it's always the low lives with dubious thoughts in their heads. I am going over to my statcounter shortly to see what it comes up with for me. I can imagine all sorts of things. I won't get my hopes up and I'll be ready to laugh my head off.

nappy valley girl said...

I think your title is great - I would go as far as to say, one of the best around. You should see some of the searches that lead to mine - 'schoolgirl nappy' was one particularly memorable one.....

Unknown said...

I'll echo Nappy Valley girl, I love your blog title and it stood out enough for me to come by and visit way back when.

Oh and I'll pay your husband £4.25 if he'll put a YouTube clip up of you in that SpiderMan costume!

John said...

it matters not how they got here, dear mh, but once here they will chortle and come again (as it were).

And cosmic in the circs - word veri is huntr.

Working Mum said...

I get people via searches about CBeebies characters - don't know whether to be relieved or disappointed!

Clare Wassermann said...

Hmmm I get quite a few people visiting my Blog who have come through you, as it were, but I hadn't thought about how they GOT to you in the first place...now my mind boggles. But hopefully we have distracted these "people" (she said carefully not appearing to be sexist or pervertist) from what they were thinking about and given them some glimpse of our wholesome (?) lives instead.

Iota said...

"Round bottomed housewife". People do have extraordinary needs, don't they? I wasn't aware, actually, that there were any other types.

Millennium Housewife said...

PM and NVG I stand humbled in your presence

NB only really posh ones obviously

Mud, watch this space!

Devoted, thankyou, you made my day x


Irene, did you laugh?


Tara, needless to say i have yet to mention that request to Husband


Earnest, indeed...


WM, shall I go in and put dominant working mum just to get you a good one?


Yarnie, we could change the world!


iota, oh thousands, some too much to put in this 12 rated blog (they did rate it 12 didn't they?)

Jean said...

If you get any requests for a round bottomed housewife you can send them to me :-)

Her indoors said...

LOL, I once got a search on one of my blogs by someone who'd googled "never wear a wheelie bin on your first date". I don't know what they were looking for. All I know is that they were from Australia and I couldn't have agreed with them more ;-D

Millennium Housewife said...

nSm, consider it a competition..

Karen, you win hands down on the weirdness front

cheshire wife said...

Very inventive piece of writing. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Isn't the main thing for people to read your blog regardless of how they arrived at it.

A Confused Take That Fan said...

MH, I arrived looking for other desperate housewives and found you.
I think you're funny so I come back.
I don't want to see you in a spiderman costume though, if you don't mind.
I think your title is one of the best in blogland too.
I also looked up images of frumpy housewife to send a pic to an old friends reunited person, to show how I looked now, because I'm funny like that, and all I found were well, houswives who certainly weren't cooking, cleaning or in aisle 4 or Waitrose. I was shocked MH, shocked to the core. Now how do you find out such techincal details of whom finds your blog where??

cheshire wife said...

I'm back again. Just to say that I have tagged you.

david mcmahon said...

Ah, the importance, as Oscar Wilde would no doubt have said, of being earnest!!

Strawberry Jam Anne said...

Hi there - sorry to disappoint but I popped in via Cheshire Wife's tagging. Love the post though and will call again if you don't mind. Not too sure about how folk get to me but have had a pop-up or two which I immediately exited!

A

Anonymous said...

I have to admit to mourning the passing of the lovely word Gay, to mean something lighthearted and joyous [I suppose it still does] but I believe i have most of the characteristics of a Millenium Housewife. Great fun post. Going to follow you.

Millennium Housewife said...

CW, it is indeed, I shall remember that next time someone arrives from alter ego housewife land. And thanks for tagging me I'll come on over now.

David, Earnest would love that, I'm sure he'll be over soon

A, always love new visitors, no matter how they arrive.

M, what and honour, thankyou xx

Cath said...

That is so funny. I found the same with a statcounter thingy. Pretty alarming I can tell you! And the searches on the post titles? Careful what ou name your posts...!

Cath said...

I mean what You ( I missed the Y) name your posts...

Congrats on POTD

larkswing said...

Oh that is funny!

Over from David's - happy potd!

Carah Boden said...

Ah yes, the site metre. I, too, made the mistake of looking to see where people had come from. It made depressing reading as clearly all of them had got there by mistake (I wrote a post once which had 'Fat Lady' in the title - say no more...) and certainly hadn't bothered to hang around for more than a millisecond once they got over their disappointment. Sheep, too, was possibly another draw...have you heard the one about the Welshman and the sheep? Yes, yes, of course you have, enough, enough.

Brilliant post. V funny, as ever!
x

Carah Boden said...

I can't spell 'Meter' it seems....!
Thought it looked funny.

Anonymous said...

With a name like tarte tartan, you can imagine the type of keyword searches that lead to my site! 'High heels, short tartan skirt' seems to be a popular one at the moment. How disappointed they must be when they discover me, a fully-clothed single mum, living in rural France, writing about the ups and downs of her everyday life. One that made me laugh yesterday was 'paint your cat tartan.' Now who would want to do that? It's strange world we live in.

Mmm said...

I love this post. So witty.

BTW, what blog stat counter tracker do you use? i'd liek to add one too.

Mmm said...

thanks for the link, btw.!

Anonymous said...

Crying with laughter at your posts is reminding me of the need to do my pelvic floor exercises more frequently. Just loving your writing!