Saturday, June 13, 2009

Confessions of a Domestic Goddess: The Beginning 2

I knew exactly what a Domestic Goddess was supposed to do. It’s simple really. A Domestic Goddess scrubs the house from top to bottom every day, while simultaneously creatively entertaining and stimulating the children, who grow up to be perfectly behaved intelligent little angels. The Domestic Goddess is also a gourmet cook, preparing fantastic tasty food every day, not a take-away in sight. And it is all healthy, and best of all, even the children eat it. And all the while she remains immaculately groomed, in perfect humour, to lovingly greet her husband every day.

You’ve heard of her predecessor of course - the “Good Housekeeping” perfect wife of the 1950’s. Except nowadays the Domestic Goddess has the added knowledge that she doesn’t have to do this, she just chooses to. The Domestic Goddess also keeps her brain in tune by keeping up with current events and engaging in stimulating conversation with her peers.

Aaaah. The dreams.

They started crumbling the minute we walked into the one-bedroomed flat that our 4-member family ended up living in for nearly 6 months. It appeared to be a clean, quite liveable place, and we were all raring to get going on living our new life.

It started out beautifully. I woke early to shower on that first morning, stoically dealing with the stray cockroach in the bathroom, as a Domestic Goddess should. Then I got in the shower and removed my glasses. Without which I am cannot see more than a hand or two in front of my nose.

While blissfully standing under the half-hearted stream of warm water, I noticed something moving on the tap. Being half-blind, I peered closer. Still unclear. So I peered closer still.

And screamed my lungs out, for there was my nemesis, a spider. With far too many legs. All thoughts of Domestic Goddessness disappeared and I screeched insanely for my Dear Husband, while trying madly to get out of the shower. I grabbed the nearest support (which happened to be the shower curtain) and scrabbled my way out madly.

Too madly, because by the time Dear Husband arrived, I, along with the shower rail and what turned out to be a horribly mildewed shower curtain, were in an undignified heap on the bathroom floor.

Dear Husband dispatched the spider with the shampoo bottle, and disentangled me from a very disgusting, very smelly, very green shower curtain.

My life as a Domestic Goddess had begun.

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