I’ve dealt with some mighty dangerous things in my life—bombs, dynamite, guns, knives—you name it, I’ve used it, but about the most dangerous things I can think of are in the kitchen.

I’ve done all kinds of work, too, and most of it hard and borin’, but the worst job I’ve ever encountered is in the kitchen.

I don’t envy women’s work and of all of the nasty little jobs they have, kitchen work has to be the worst. Like most men, I’ve done enough of it to know I don’t like it.

I do windows, floors, dishes and chores, but I ain’t cookin’—not as long as there is a café or coffee shop left within’ a 100-mile radius.

I ain’t too hot on doin’ dishes, either. I will do ‘em but I don’t like it.

Since the wife works up in the big smoke, she comes home on weekends. That’s fine because we don’t have to put up with each other so much that way. If you don’t think I ain’t henpecked you watch me.

Before she comes home I’m nothin’ but a house cleanin’ dude. You see, she gets plumb ill if she comes in to a dirty house, and I don’t like to see her ill.

The bed is made, the floor is vacuumed, the galley looks like an operatin’ room in the hospital.

Dust, well, there may be a little here and there, but the poor little ugly thing has bad vision and don’t seem to see that.

Now, she don’t always leave the house like she finds it. You see, she don’t leave until Monday mornin’ and she don’t have time to make the bed or do the dishes. After all, she’s got to make me a livin’.

I don’t mind when she tells me “I’ll take coffee in bed this mornin’,” since I’ve been up for two hours, made the coffee, built the fires and got half a day’s work done over with before she comes alive.

I don’t mind if she tells me that I’m gettin’ old and fat because it’s true. I don’t mind when she tells me I’m goin’ to have to change my eatin’, drinkin’ and smokin’ habits since she is probably right about that too.

And I don’t mind too much doin’ the dirty dishes except for one thing. That is where the danger comes in.

It’s the blender—that’s the little machine she used to mix up a concoction she calls a milk shake—skimmed milk, half rotted bananas, molded peaches, strawberries or any other dried, moldy, shriveled fruit that you can’t eat any other way are used in the ingredients of her milk shakes.

Now, this blender has a real nasty set of razor sharp blades that mutilates these mutilated components. Of course, I’m not the most prompt dishwasher in the world, and sometimes I don’t start doin’ dishes until I see her comin’ in the drive.

If I cut myself with that little dangerous cutter and touch that week old spoiled fruit, it’s like bein’ shot with a poison dart, and that’s dangerous.

If she leaves that blender for me to clean one more time—well, I’d rather not discuss it.

COURTESY of Tom Runnels Publications. Copyrighted and Registered by Tom Runnels and Saundra Runnels Revocable Trust. Printed in The Banner Press:  June 23, 1988.