Real Simple

Mark came in from one of his shopping excursions, all chirpy and happy.

"I bought you a present." He gushed, as if he had just awarded me a winning lotto ticket, "Here, it's for you".

He smiled proudly, and handed me a bag from HomeGoods, his favorite store.
I opened the bag and pulled out a book, Real Simple Cleaning.

"This is for me, you bought me a book that tells me how to clean the house?". I held out the book as if it had cooties and gave him the death stare.
"I just want to make things easier for you, honey. It's full of short cuts and cleaning tips. I want to help you."

As I sat there in my big fluffy chair, I thought of so many ways he could 'help'. There are the four giant boxes of Broadway posters under the bed that I have to move every time I dust the floor. He has about five hundred cook books filling every shelf in the house that are hell to work around. Thinning out that collection would help immensely in keeping the house clean. There are the scattered tissues, the spilled condiments, the drawers and cabinet doors left open, the piles of un-opened mail on the dining room table, there are so many other things he could do besides buying me an instruction book on how to properly vacuum up dog hair. In fact, I know something that would help so much more than a book on how to be an efficient housekeeper. Instead of buying Broadway posters on Ebay, cook books from HomeGoods, and fancy kitchen gadgets that I can't figure out, he could hire a real maid. He'd surely get so much more for his money doing that. At least he would know that the house would actually get cleaned.