Tips for Men: How to Get Out of Doing Home Chores

It's another lovely Sunday afternoon. Ah, the good old couch calls out....beckoning you to partake of it's enticing warmth and get a few well-deserved winks of shut-eye.

But wait! If 'she-who-must-be-obeyed' catches you first, it's good-bye couch, hello leaf-blower.

To avoid this calamity, I have constructed a few helpful, handy-dandy tips which, if followed, will provide you with an escape from the dreaded chore-monster and freedom to pursue other, more 'interesting' pursuits, like meeting the guys down at 'Paddy's Sports Bar' or numerous other venues ala relaxation and recreation.

Well-known in the military world, camouflage is one of the oldest and best ways to escape detection by the enemy. Employ this technique when you want to be 'unseen' for a period of time; it's a veritable 'Cloak of Invisibiltiy' (see Harry Potter vol.2).

Get yourself some material that exactly matches the object you wish to 'blend into'...be it couch, easy chair recliner, or, if you wish, to hide successfully outside, some astro-turf that resembles your lawn. Then simply throw the material over you and take a snooze beneath it. This will effectively render you unseeable to all but the most suspiciously observant.

Note: hopefully no one will sit or step on you. It may happen. Just hope they aren't heavy.

It is a well-known fact that everyone has a double or as the Germans call it a 'Doppelganger'. You need only find yours. It is not that difficult. Just as soon as you are looking for someone who looks just like you do, you will suddenly see them everywhere. The grocery, the library, the pet store and the park. Once you have identified a likely candidate, just make a deal with him. Tell him you will pay him when he comes to your house and does your chores, wearing your clothes, while you go to his house and have a nice break from 'said chores'.

He must of course be a single person, because if he has a wife she will likely take you for her husband, since you both look alike, and set you up with a list of chores to do there. This would defeat the purpose. Your wife will probably not notice the difference between you and your 'hired-twin', because, to women, 'all husbands look alike', or so I have been told.

I have yet to test this hypothesis.

Along the same lines as the twin, is the mannequin. I picked up this little trick from reading Conan Doyle's "The Adventure of the Empty House." Mannequins can be purchased from any retail store, if you are willing to pay the right price.

Just get one and dress it, and keep it in the garage. Then, when you want it to appear you are cutting the grass, say, you simply set the plastic fellow up pushing your lawnmower, and post-haste leave to join the boys down at the aforesaid 'sports-bar'. If you put a hat and sunglasses on the dummy, and leave instructions with the little hoodlum next-door to move it every quarter hour or so, you will be surprised at how easy it is to stay away for hours and never be suspected.

This one is technically more challenging. The trick here is to set the electric kitchen clock on a timer that shuts it off and on so frequently that the time virtually remains the same for hours on end. This way you can say "o yes...at 3:00pm Dearest, I'll plunge the toilet and clean the grout", or whatever, and of course, 3:00pm never really comes, and you are off the hook.

I know of one buddy who pulled off this little caper for several weekends in a row until his wife found out. His house now has the best kept lawn in the neighborhood. Need I say more?

All little boys learned this basic trick when they were still toddlers I have no doubt. I certainly did.

Just remember to vary the illness. It won't do to say you are blind every weekend. Your wife may smell a rat. Have a number of illnesses listed on some slips of paper and pick one at random each time to keep things looking 'authentic'.

Hiding is the oldest and possibly the best of all the schemes for avoiding 'chores' that I know of. You simply have to know where to hide. The possibilities are endless. Closets, laundry hampers, attics, basements,up in the tree-house, under a bed, on the roof, up the chimney, down the root cellar, out in the garage, behind the curtains, under the table, in the shower,in the doghouse, under the porch, behind the settee,in a trunk,or nestled in the coats in a wardrobe.

The larger your house, of course, the more opportunity for deception. This is called a 'truism'.

If you are found out, and believe me, you will be sooner or later, (see footnote) well, for that, I have no advice.

But in the meantime, you may have enjoyed a small respite from the terrible task-master.

Surely that's worth something.

It is another 'truism' that wives and women in general are virtually indeceivable and can spot a man's deviousness even before it occurs to him, (according to my calculations approximately 99.739 % of the time.)

You must learn to live with this fact of life, and do your best in spite of it.

Good luck. You'll need it.