There are those who believe that women are scatter-brained flibberty-gibbets incapable of focusing on any one task from start to finish. There are others, such as myself, who would like to point out that the ability to do more than one task simultaneously is called, in the workplace, “multi-tasking” and is considered to be a highly desirable asset. But unfortunately those who do not share this talent have a difficult time understanding its benefits.
I can cook dinner, talk on the phone, do the laundry and empty the dishwasher all at the same time. And very rarely will I accidentally dump the salad into the dryer instead of the salad bowl. True, there are these occasional slip-ups when we multi-task, but for every mistake I make, I have accomplished ten other tasks successfully.
Many years ago, when we dwelled in caves and did not shave our armpits, men were expected to do only one thing: kill elk (or buffalo, or mammoths, depending on the century and continent). Meanwhile, the women squatted in the cave and kept the newly-discovered campfires burning, picked berries, made clothes, bore and raised children, healed the sick, and, if they had time, ran out during lunch to the hairdresser’s to get that expertly matted, just-got-hit-by-lightning look that was so popular back then. Our genetics have changed little since those times (although luckily hairstyles have improved dramatically).
My responsibilities around the house are to: clean the house, do the laundry, cook, wash the dishes, pay the bills, walk the dog, check the mail, make the coffee, and shop for food. My boyfriend’s tasks are to: take out the garbage, if he remembers, which is about 30% of the time. I do honestly believe he means to be more helpful, but men have this uncanny ability to tune out chores that need doing. A man and woman can be standing together staring at the exact same kitchen and where she sees coffee grounds, cracker crumbs, soap scum, fingerprints, and rotten food, he sees, well, a kitchen. And so, when she begins her ritualistic high-pitched wail consisting of variations on the general idea that their house is so dirty pigs would be offended by it, he will respond with a resigned look that says, “Great. There goes poker night.” He will then proceed to help her clean in an overly-solicitous manner that states he is humoring her because she is clearly unstable – not because he agrees the place needs to be cleaned.
And he really doesn’t think it does. We must remember that this is the same guy who, when you first met him, did not clean the dishes in his apartment until there was nothing left to eat out of, including the bathtub. Same person also considered underwear clean if you turned it inside out, and saw no reason to wash the sheets ever, since you always bathed yourself immediately after sleeping on them anyway. There was stuff growing in his sink evolved enough to go two rounds on Jeopardy.
To their credit, due to an uncanny ability to block out everything around them including babies crying and the neighbor’s house on fire, men can concentrate so intently on whatever single task is at hand that they do a much better job on it than a woman would. Granted, it takes them seven times longer, but when it’s done, it is really done. I may be able to clean the whole house in two hours while my boyfriend has only gotten halfway through cleaning the guest bathroom’s toilet, but when he is finished with that toilet, by God, you could eat off it, if that’s your kind of thing.
The downside of this intense focus is when it misses the target. For example, you may say, “Honey, while I am chopping the broccoli, cooking the chicken, heating the bread and fixing tomorrow’s breakfast could you please stir the rice?” He will then get up from the couch with every intention of doing the chore you have asked him to do. However, in between the couch and the kitchen and directly in his path is the television, on which there is a shiny black helicopter dodging machine-gun fire in a most seductive manner. An hour later when you glance up, sweaty and breathless from your ten simultaneous chores, he will still be standing there, staring wide-eyed at the television like one of those zombies from Night of the Living Dead. “Honey?” you’ll say, your voice catching on a sob, “the rice?” (which, of course, burned a long time ago). And he’ll visibly shake himself, remove his gaze from the source of his intense concentration and look at you as if he has no idea how you got into his house.
I suppose men have just as much room to gripe about this genetic dichotomy as we do, and hopefully when the frustration reaches its apex we can all take a moment to reflect on how well we balance each other out. But not if the #$%&* trash hasn’t been taken out in two weeks because frankly with that smell I can’t concentrate on anything.
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