When the help is away…

Gentlemen, let’s take a moment and tip our hats to all the house helps in homes all over this beautiful country.

We are happier men because of them. If there is anything the long December holidays teach us, it is that it’s not women who run homes, it’s the house help.

Women say they supervise, but the December holidays have raised an important question; how can you supervise what you can’t execute?

And no, I’m not trying to stir the hornet’s nest here; this is the year for peace. (You can put your hats back on, gentlemen. Thank you.)
Clueless women
Most women – married or not – haven’t the first clue how to run a home. I’m not talking about housewives or stay-at-home women.

I’m talking about professional women, with degrees and cushy jobs. Women who make as much as we do, often even more.

It’s hard to tell how much a woman makes because the best money launderers are women.

This is the woman I’m talking about; self-sufficient, learned, educated (there is a difference), imaginative, decisive and confident. They don’t know the first thing about running a home.

The holidays taught us that women only love spending time with their kids over the weekend. Staying with their kids, day in day out for two weeks, drives them stark raving mad.

They don’t know the rhythm of their children; what time do they take their naps? What do they love eating? What calms them down?

What do they love doing? What are their peculiar mannerisms and temperaments? Three days in with the kids screaming and running around and breaking things and crying and these women are ready to tip the contents of an entire bottle of wine down their throat in one go. And sell the kids off to the lowest bidder.

Also, you will discover, over the holidays, that these women can’t wash clothes. No, I take that back. They can. Only they won’t.

Why would they want to ruin their acrylic nails? Do you know how much those nails cost?! Take your expectations to the nearest dhobi, please.

So she will call in one of those women who sit on estate kerbs looking for temporary work to wash all the dirty laundry, iron them and clean all shoes.

She will scrub your expensive suede shoes with soap and water, ruining them. And you will miss your house help, because she knows which shoes are cleaned how and which shirt is a wash and wear. Your women have no clue.

Most women can’t cook, either. They might watch the Food channel, but they only cook when they have been touched by the hand of Jesus Christ our saviour. But daily? For two weeks?

You are mad, brother. Pick up the phone and order take-out. And when she cooks and it’s too oily or too spicy, you will have to shut up and eat. When she asks what you think of the food (trick question alert), she will cut you those eyes that say, “Go ahead and criticise my cooking. I dare you!

Women hate cleaning the house

Say something nasty when I’ve been slaving in this house, taking care of YOUR kids and you have been sitting there on your ass watching Top Gear.”

Women hate cleaning the house. You want them to sweep and mop, and arrange what the kids keep pulling apart every three minutes?

You want them to do the dishes? Please. Only when the house starts to look like a health hazard. Not before.

And once they have cleaned up, dare you drop even a clean handkerchief on the floor. When she is done with the chores and she is worn out, she will get her iPad out and log on to Kilimani Mums to complain because misery loves company.

(Happy New Year, ladies!)
Without house helps around to do chores, women get moody and cranky and resent you for being a man and for just sitting there reading a stupid magazine or going out to meet your stupid friends for drinks while she is back home taking care of YOUR kids.

And so she walks around the house kicking toys out of her way, sighing deeply and breathing hard like she has a hernia, mumbling inaudible stuff like she has gone bananas.

When you listen close you will hear a recurring word in these mumbles: “kill.” You know the first person she will surely kill is not your third born but you.

So you avoid her ‘flight path’ and you speak only when spoken to and you eat your vegetables like a good boy. And when you get a tiny window, you are out of that house like a bat from hell.  

The one thing women ask themselves during this time is, “How do they (house helps) do it?” How do they come back home from work and find the house clean and the food ready and the kids washed and happy?

Those are good questions that should be answered by giving these girls a salary hike. (I can almost hear a collective rolling of eyes and them saying, “I’m already paying her too much!”).

You should see them when the house helps come back from their villages bearing pineapples and bananas. You should see how the women struggle to hide their relief.

How colour comes back into their faces. How they start calling you “babe” and you are confused because for the past two weeks, you were a nothing but a lazy and inconsiderate idiot. Gentlemen, let us take our hats off once again for these house helps.