FoxTrot Classics by Bill Amend for November 16, 2019

like I’ve repeatedly and countlessly said, how did Roger even survive college before he met Andy?

Well, they say foxes are crafty. And this proves it!

Works every time.

She should make him do it over until he gets it right. After a time or two he’ll get tired of playing that stupid game.

If he didn’t break anything, then he got the dishwasher half right.

I do dishes — as does my wife. I don’t tell her how to do it, and she doesn’t tell me. Even though I do it better……….

Years ago we had a friend who decided to do us a favor & surprise us by doing the dishes & mopping the floor. (She had a key to our place.) We came home to discover that the dishes were washed with cold water (they were practically icy to the touch) and poorly rinsed; you could see bubble rings. She also forgot to rinse the floor; it was sticky. She insisted that the best way to wash dishes was with cold water, and the floors were naturally rinsed when washed. We thanked her, but asked that she not do it again.

That’s been working for me for 30 years

I think the glasses are supposed to be upside down.

From the book of tricks husband’s use.

By “glasses are upside down” I assume she means that they’re in wrong, not literally upside down? Right side up would fill them with dirty dishwater.

My family seems to be incapable of correctly loading the dishwasher, so I do it. Unless I’m the victim of a 40 year scam.

I am not allowed to load the dishwasher or use the washing machine. I am allowed to unload same. I also iron (nobody could get my military shirts done to my standards) and vacuum – both of which take a “heavy hand.”

Loading dishwashers, running the laundry and folding fitted sheets are things man was not meant to know. Anyone with a Y chromosome cannot do these tasks. It’s a secret that is passed down from mother to daughter and us menfolk are kept in the dark.

When I am on my own, I use few dishes – these I wash by hand and keep using over and over.

This plan will seem far less clever after she divorces you, Roger.

My husband has pulled the “do laundry wrong so she’ll never ask again” crud with me, but I’d tell him ‘Okay, you do your own clothes and towels from now on and I’ll do mine’ and eventually he’d get with the program… till the next time (his memory is short, mine is long). :-D

Many years ago, I read a letter to Ann Landers from a woman who complained her husband put the knives in the dishwasher blde UP, and she said it was dangerous. He claimed they got cleaner when put in that way. Ann told her they were both right.

My father did this. He was distressed at the way the dishwasher was being loaded, so he announced to the family, “From now on, I will be the one to load the dishwasher.” Our response was, “OK Dad.” A week later he cried out, “Why am I the only one loading the dishwasher?”

Let’s start up again on how toilet paper should be loaded in the holder.

And don’t start about the toilet seat! (Wait, I just did.)

Rog is smarter than he looks

This is a very common form of manipulation, so common that a lot of husbands aren’t even doing it consciously. My husband sometimes gets so upset that he’s being asked to do something he doesn’t want to do that he genuinely gets a mental block and “can’t” do it well.

Of course, when I just do things myself, I’m criticized for letting him “get away” with it. When I make him do things, but they don’t get done right, I’m told it’s my fault, because I should just do it myself if he’s going to do it wrong. This, of course, is a very common way that women are blamed no matter what they do.

As for my husband and me, we’re working on it. (And with the dishwasher specifically, it’s actually the other way around. He’s chosen to do it all himself, because he doesn’t like my method of unloading.) But I’ve known far too many women who felt trapped and dealt with it as long as they could, doing everything themselves, until they snapped. A couple of them have managed to remain friends with their ex-husbands, but they still bear the consequences of the trauma that their husbands didn’t even realize they were causing. Because frankly, they didn’t care enough to pay attention.

I fully understand that this isn’t always the case. Sometimes the wife is just being too demanding, for example. And wives can obviously act helpless, too. But when the stereotype is that the women end up with most of the work, and we also know how the balance of power tilts on average, we should also recognize that overall, it isn’t a coincidence that it’s usually men who won’t learn to do things properly.

Geez, I know a couple like this, only the guy is the picky one. His wife convinced him she is useless when it comes to loading the dishwasher or even doing a load of laundry. I ever know whether to scoff at her or applaud her.

It’s like a page torn from my life.

Never be good at anything you don’t like doing

It’s called creative incompetence