Male Genetic Dirt Blindness (MGDB)

[taxlady]

denizsarikaya posted a link to a Dave Barry column. One of the things he writes about is "Male Genetic Dirt Blindness (MGDB)".

Back in the seventies I lived with a boyfriend. He was a bath person. I refused to wash the bathtub, 'cause it was his ring around the tub. I'm a shower person, so I don't have to sit in the filthy tub. It's just my feet touching the tub.

I nagged him about the filthy ring. He just didn't seem to see it. Then one day I walked into the bathroom while he was in the tub and that bathtub ring leapt out at me. I asked him how he could take a bath in a tub that gross. He looked at the walls of the tub and saw the ring for the first time. He sat up straight and looked like he was trying to get away from it. After that, he washed the tub regularly.

Comments

[ellenk.livejournal.com]

Odd, because it seems to work in the reverse in this house. I look around, satisfied that the place looks satisfactory, and Mark comes charging in, wailing and moaning and gnashing his teeth about how long it's going to take to clean. I look at him oddly, and ask what he's talking about. Then he points out dust on the stairs (well, it *belongs* on the stairs!) and schmutz on the kitchen floor (oh yeah, that; that's just spilled juice, nothing to worry about).

But this isn't the only role-reversal we do. As I've said before, my wife...I think I'll keep him.

[taxlady.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't trade Stirling for anyone/anything, but I want a wife.

[zadcat.livejournal.com]

Some men are real fusspots about cleanliness. I'm more casual than some men i've met, and I'm not as bad a housekeeper as others. Dave Barry is funny, but he does write from a background of bland suburban predictability, after all.

[taxlady.livejournal.com]

You're quite right.

Actually, I don't think it was so much that my boyfriend was male as he was from South Africa. He grew up with servants. He never thought about the fact that clothing dropped on the floor would reappear clean and ironed in a drawer or the closet. He never saw a bathtub ring. It would just be gone.

[zadcat.livejournal.com]

Another aspect is that if you live alone, the bathtub ring is your own. I feel quite differently if I know either a) the bathtub ring is someone else's scuzz or b) someone else would be using the bath after me and would be coping with my scuzz. When you cohabit obviously things have to be a little different and you can't casually leave the tampon box on the kitchen counter, or whatever.