So sitting there in the evening watching Motherland with my teen kids and my husband. One of the mums in the storyline makes a statement about the Mother’s load. Quick as a flash, my husband speaks up. He says he feels empathy for this woman because, in our house, he carries the Motherland. My perimenopausal brain and body activated emergency protocol. My brain is yelling ‘please God don’t make me kill him in front of the kids’. Also, as appealing as reading, gym time and allocated family visitation sounds I don’t think I am cut out for jail. I nearly cried yesterday that the truffle mayo was finished.
My husband walks around the house sighing a lot picking up items and moving them around. In no world does he know the weight if the Mother’s load. He goes to sleep like a baby at night. Not a worry about :
- Upcoming birthday parties – buy gift, RSVP and take child on time on the right day to the right church hall!
- Doctors follow up – last appointment detected iron deficiency in child Number 2.
- Dentist – One more tooth out before I have to suck off an orthodontist to pay for braces.
- Opticians – Number one is suffering from headaches, must book optician appointment. get some more Cod liver tablets and take him for longer walks.
- That’s just a quick insight to my current list.
A good example of the Mother’s load is Christmas. I don’t know how but Christmas in my house results in my buying everyone’s gifts.At the same time providing my husband clear instructions on what I want. So on the run up to Christmas I keep a keen ear out for what the kids might want. My son wanted a vintage Goalkeeper top from his favourite football team. Fine, I right i am on the lookout. I find a couple that are in really good condition. Then, I start comparing the prices. My husband looks over my shoulder and asks me what I am doing. I tell him that our son requested this gift for Christmas. I am trying to find one in good condition. I tell him about the price range I am looking at. He tells me that he is super surprised about the cost of vintage, is my son sure he wants it? Fine conversation over.
Later on that week a parcel arrives. My husband chucks it towards me and says oh yeah here I bought it. Like really, really proud of himself.He says ‘You’re welcome!”. I open it and find the Vintage Goalkeeper top inside. On closer inspection, the front is all stained with brown on the white writing. As I turned it around, I noticed holes and puckering from the neck down to the bottom seam. I showed this to my husband, he said yeah that’s exactly per the description. He seems annoyed that I am not thanking him. I said the ones I was looking at where in excellent condition, he said yeah but this one was cheaper.
He said to just wrap it and put it under the Christmas tree. He then asked if I needed any help in procuring our daughter’s present. So that’s when the Mother’s load came in.
I hand washed the top, soaking it in various detergents to remove the brown stains. I soaked it on 2 separate occasions and spent loads of money on different stain removers. Then I ran it through the washing machine. Air-dried it in my bathroom. So now the brown stains have faded the next step was to deal with the bobbling. I purchased an electric debobbler and went to work. I don’t know if you have ever bought an electric debobbler? When i purchase something i like to read the comments. One of the comments read it worked on removing a wart! Fuck me people are so inventive!
The de-bobbling was phased over 3 weeks. It would be bought out in zoom calls. Once all done i wrapped it and put it under the Christmas tree.
On Christmas Day my son opened the top – my husband turns to him and says I bought you that. Mummy just wrapped it.
Turns out my husband had bought it 15 pounds cheaper. The stain removers and electric debobbler was 30 quid and about 6 hours of my time. I had to say thank-you too for helping me out.
Please note the definition of Motherload in the urban dictionary should not be confused with Mother’s load!
Leave a Reply