MUNDANE MUSINGS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 89, 6 July 1927, Page 5

MUNDANE MUSINGS

THIS MARRIAGE BUSINESS! Looking round at your married friends teaches you a whole lot: I’ve made up my mind about heaps of things while looking! One is that when I marry George I'm not going to sweep and wash, and dust and ■ polish, until my back aches and mv I shingle comes out of curl. Don't I think it: I've watched the others do' it! Why do they do it? If you ask. they’ll say with a bright smile—that's it they've only been married a short time-—"lt s for dear John's sake.” If tnej \e been married a long time thev say the same thing, only with a re- * call it jolly mean and unsporting to blame the poor man for a.ll the cleaning and polishing that goes on in the world. He doesn’t want a’h r ? arli ng—just you ask him! All he asks is to have his meals to time, his socks darned, and his pipe, papers, and slippers where he can find them. Ir a man’s wishes were considered, says an English writer, all the soap and polish factories would have to put up their shutters. It’s women who keep the soap and metalpolish firms going. DOMESTIC UPHEAVALS Do you suppose for a minute that a man would put up with the horrors and discomforts of the annual frenzv called spring cleaning if he could get out of it? Not on your life! If only you could hear the dull thud of his heart as it drops into his boots when the cleaning topic looms up you’d never have the effrontery to blame him for turning a nice comfy home into an arid waste/ A man can’t understand a woman s passion for disturbing the dust that lies snug and warm in the carpet, behind pictures, and under the sideboard. “It isn’t doing any harm,” he protests pettishly, “why can’t you leave it alone?” Leave it alone! That’s just what the average woman can’t do. She loves digging it up and broadcasting it. Women adore domestic upheavals. Oh, yes, they do! I’ve never met a woman yet who could bear to let one pass her by. A VERY MINOR PART I hate a house that’s dusty and stuffy. I hate badly-cooked meals and slummocky housekeeping. But if you think I’m going to get roundshouldered, straight hair, broken nails, and bad-tempered keeping house for George, you’re wrong. Housekeeping means work; I know all about that, but housekeeping doesn’t mean work all the time —that’s where I slip off. I know I’m not a genius : —five brothers, and being engaged to George three years hasn’t left me many illusions about myself. But you can take it from me, running our home will only take up a part of my life—a very minor part. I shan’t run up yardlcng bills for washing soda and floor polish—horrible smelly things!—and George would heaps rather I curled my hair than polish the stair-rods —and I shall! All the married women in the neighbourhood will shake their heads and pity poor George—and, as far as George and. I are concerned, we will laugh and enjoy life. A cake will keep fresh for a long time if wrapped in a cloth with a green cooking-apple.