Immigrant Child.

“What? Were you raised in a barn? He asks.  “Ah, I already know that answer.” he finally says.

“Yes, I was. And you know why.” I told him.

“Yeah, I know, but even so,  you aren't even close to Lace Curtain Irish, you're pure Shanty Irish.”

That old comment reminds me of a joke and I tell it to him.

“Hey! What's the difference between Lace Curtain Irish and Shanty Irish?” 

He stares, waiting for the zinger.

“Lace curtain Irish wash their hands after they piss in the sink!”

“Haw, haw, haw...that's YOU.” he jokes.

I retort..a bit late. “Hey....no...that ain't right!”

I had watched him “double bag” a pillow with two pillow cases.  “Why do that?” I asked.  I'm told it saves the pillow from being destroyed by hair oils.  I had never seen that before. 

“You know, at Great Lakes, the Naval Boot Camp, they teach you these domestic, house-wifey things.  I bet you don't know how to do a hospital corner?”

“Nope...”

So I'm showed how. It's easy enough apparently.

“Now flip a quarter on it.” he goes on. God, I had heard of this naval trick to find out if you can make a bed. So I flipped a quarter into the air, and the damn thing did bounce off the sharply made bed.

“You make your bed everyday? Why? It's only going to get ruined later.” I tell him.

He just stares at me, again.

****

As to the charge that I was raised in a barn, it's true. I plead nolo contendere with extenuating circumstances.

I have alluded to the fact my Mom had battled severe depression most of her life. It came and went, like the seasons.  If you've never seen someone with it, it's astonishingly crippling.  Back in the 60's and 70's the treatment regime wasn't developed well enough so the success of pulling people out of those black depths didn't always work. It wouldn't be till the early 80's where a drug regimen was concocted that did stabilize her.   One of the great symptoms of depression is that you don't want to do anything...especially housework.

I was born and grew up into this so my idea of a neat home was different from of the others. That was until I saw the inside of my friend's homes.  Their homes looked like museums to me, when in fact they were just normally “neat” and not some aberration that I thought they were.  Why was ours like a hurricane had it it? Why was the dirty laundry piled up to the moon? Why were the clean clothes piled up to the moon?  Why were we out of food again?  How come their Moms vacuumed nearly daily when mine vacuumed  if there was a New Moon?  The last time my Mom ironed any shirt was in 1973.  For some reason I remember that. 

As I grew up and became more aware of our clumsy looking home, I would get pissed at her. As I got older I forgave her as I learned just how life gets some people in it's teeth and shakes them around like a Raggedly Ann doll in a Rottweiler's mouth.  A bit of maturity is needed to show some compassion to others instead of being a selfish fuck.  But when you're 10, you're pretty much a selfish fuck still learning how not to be one.

So, as a kid,  I ended up doing that housework, to a point. Well, to the point where a boy who was never trained in house-wifery could manage. I learned how to laundry, cook, iron, wash windows, vacuum and all those other fun things. But, and a Big But, I had learned to do them on my own and that meant I did it either 100% right or 40% right, depending on the task.

Where was my Dad? Too busy climbing the corporate ladder and apparently the house never bothered him. He, too, was Shanty Irish I came to learn.

To this day, my house-wifery talent has some great, huge lapses in it. Add to that a single guy's idea of a neat house.  Hey, at least I don't have  fat wharf rats eating out of piles of garbage in here! I ain't that bad! But please, don't write your name in the dust stuck to the TV screen.

****
“You raised yourself you know.” LN, a co-worker, once told me.

“Yeah, I agree, which is why I don't let anyone step into my life to “help,”  I abhor it.”  This is true. I have taken the dictum of “If you want something done right or just plain done, you have to do it yourself” and raised it to a religion.

“YOU...raised yourself.” she repeats, with a knowing stare.

“Yep, I, me, mine, myself...” I say jokingly.

“...and that's why you love independence, doing things your way...it's worked for  you.”

I can have a particular laser-like stare that appears on it's own and it fixed right on her and I say: “It HAD to work.”

****

I'm still not doing “hospital corners” nor am I going to dust every day. I am quite content with “lived in” And as for Shanty Irish...yep!