Get Out of My Damned Kitchen!

Some misogynists like to make jokes about how a woman's "place" is in the kitchen.  Meaning, that her only purpose is to serve her husband and children (not by choice*) and to, perhaps, not be allowed to leave the kitchen.  I suppose for women who are oppressed this way in their own households, being relegated to the kitchen might seem like servitude or imprisonment.  

I'm not one of those women and come to think of it, neither are most women I know.  We all seem to lead pretty well-rounded lives is what I'm saying.  I'm not subjugated in my own household at all and I really enjoy cooking.  I find it relaxing and I'm pretty good at it.  To the point that I don't like anyone else messing around in the kitchen besides me.  When you're in my kitchen, you're in my house, if you know what I mean (like, "you're in my house now, punk!").

The problem is that I burn out right around Wednesday evenings, especially during tutoring season (when I work 8 hours before working another 2 or 3).  So come Wednesday nights, when I've had fourteen seconds of sleep per night and I'm crabby and acting really put upon and obnoxious, we usually end up eating out for the rest of the week, much to the detriment of both our wallets and our own health (chicken wings?  McDonald's?  Yes, please!).  

For a long time, Zack has been suggesting that he take two nights a week as his "dinner nights."  Since implementing this change would require that I relinquish some of my control over both the grocery list and the kitchen, I have been avoiding it for months and months.  See the previous blog post, though.  Necessity may be the mother of invention, but it is also sometimes the mother of Amanda re-negotiating her weird boundaries.  Reluctantly, I agreed to let Zack into the kitchen with the purpose of cooking us dinner.

So there I was, sitting in the living room, thinking about the time that Zack cooked fish and then left the pan in the oven for three weeks.  Or how the kitchen used to look.  Or how much I didn't want to do a pile of dishes at 8 o'clock in the evening.  Or how favorably our insurance carrier would view paying out on a claim after the microwave exploded.  Or any number of otherwise ridiculous scenarios.  

I don't know why.  He managed to live just fine all by himself before I got there.  Nothing exploded (that I know of) and I'm relatively certain that he ate. 

Know what ended up happening?  We ate a perfectly lovely dinner and there were no explosions.  Pretty much what anyone would expect.

Slowly, but surely, I'm learning how to share.

*For stay home moms who read this, I'm not talking about you at all.  More power to you!