Expat (House)Wife

Yes, it has come to this. At the grand age of 27 I am turning into a housewife. Well, technically a flatwife I suppose, although that doesn't sound too flattering so I think I'll stick to housewife. I already cook all the dinners (other than on Sunday night, the one day of the week The Husband likes to prove his cooking prowess) and do all the washing and I would do the cleaning if we didn't have someone come in twice a week to do that. What? This is Thailand, everyone has a cleaner! Well, I have now started to iron The Husband's shirts too. I don't iron. I have never ironed, preferring the 'hang it up and hope the creases just fall out' approach. Oh, and I try not to buy things that need ironing. The Husband, of course, has lots of shirts that do need ironing and in the past he has always done it himself. This is not just because I was asserting my feminism but because he is slightly OCD when it comes to things like that. He buffed and polished his dress shoes over a period of three months prior to our wedding. His t-shirts have to be folded just so in his drawers - I recently discovered that he had been secretly taking his shirts out and re-folding them after I had put them away. The other day he re-organised the fridge as it wasn't quite up to his standards.

As I have more time than he does, I thought I'd be a good wifey and help out by ironing his shirts. As mentioned earlier, I do not like ironing at the best of times, but in 30 degree C heat, it is hell. By the end of it, I looked like I had been sat in a steam room for the past hour. And shirts are so fiddly to iron, with the sleeves and the collar and that little bit at the top of the back. It took me an hour but I did it, and was proud of myself. I was later told that my hour's worth of accidentally ironing creases into shirts and then spending twice as long ironing them out again was "passable". Well, that's fine. This Expat Wife is more than happy to leave the ironing to The Husband in future.