There used to be a time when....

[humdingerslammer]

There used to be a time when I could get up in the morning about 6.30, take a leak, have a quick face wash and wander to the kitchen and make myself a start up coffee (instant of course).

I would greet the two cats, fill their food bowls and wander outside in the hope that the newspaper had been delivered. Most often than not it had been but I would be amazed at where I would find it.

There used to be the time where it would be waiting like some forlorn sausage on the footpath, glistening in a skin of shrink-wrap. But then, and perhaps because I complained one day that it hadn't arrived at all, I have had to search for it. So I complained again.

Now, where it appears is anyone's guess. Sometimes amongst the wet bushes in winter or up the bloody tree branches in the summer. Like the delivery guys give a shit. Street delivery my arse! Now and again some dog walker collects it and puts it at my door. Nice one that.

So, eventually, with paper in hand, there used to be a time when I would return to the cosy warmth and comfort of the house, sit at the table, swig some coffee, fight to un-shrinkwrap the newspaper and settle in for a read.

There used to be a time when all this would unfold on an uninterrupted basis, except for the cats wanting some attention, which had become part of the morning ritual. I knew that the missus would not be up for an hour or two and that I could look forward to some quiet morning time.

There used to be a time when all this was prelude to getting ready to go to work. Then I retired. All these "used to be a time" rituals have changed.

Now, the missus gets up 2 hours earlier. Wants a coffee. Wants the newspaper. Wants me to cook, clean, wash, iron, chaffueur her here and there, mow the bloody lawns, tidy the garden, put this trinket together, scrub the bathrooms, sanitise the dunnies.... it goes on and on and on.

There used to be a time when I would do very few of these tasks. There used to be time when she would do most of them, unseen and uncomplaining. I, of course, worked. That's my excuse.

But now I have been caught, balls and all, as I sit and wonder days unending about whatever happened when there used to be a time when....All, it seems, that I have left is crap.... and sitting on the ultra clean dunny for one of them does not help at all!!!

[RTB]

That's almost poetry. A good read.

I'm in a similar boat to you. 2 years ago I retired and sent the misses out to work after she left her last job 16 years ago.

Now I do all the house work, and she gets to come home complaining about how much she hates her job, never gets to see her family, and my life is so awesome.

Yep, I am happy with it. Do some stuff around the house, play with the Jeep, and all in nice peace and quiet. it is just the meal time that I don't like as it is hard to make something that everyone likes. So I just make stuff I like and listen to them all complain.

Just send her out to work.

Oh, by the way. I remember being a paperboy years ago. Used to ride the streets on my BMX delivering papers. There was one bloke who used to complain that I would threw the rolled up paper too hard against his door. As any smart arse teenage boy would, I just threw it harder. There was a nice lady who used to give me cakes. I very gently placed her paper just beside her front door in the exact place she wanted it.

They deliver the papers around here by car these days. My neighbor gets it delivered and the delivery bloke doesn't even stop as he tosses the paper out the window to various spots around their (or mine) front garden.