What to do when your wife returns after 10 weeks

Things you shouldn’t do:

1. Have party guests still asleep on the floor in the lounge


2. Only have leftover cocktail ingredients in the fridge


3. Take it as an opportunity to leave the washing/ironing/cleaning


4. Clear the bank account as a reward to self


5. Tell the children as a joke that Mommy is gone forever, but she’s ‘in a better place’


6. Rely on said children to tidy up


7. Make a special ‘welcome home’ sign out of all the discarded pizza boxes


8. Move house or change the locks
   
   But you probably should:

1. Get rid of any evidence of temporary bachelorhood (No, not that, I mean fast food containers, disproportionately large empty alcohol containers, rancid clothes)


2. Get the children to make crafty projects, so that all evidence of extended DVD viewing is erased


3. Replenish the cupboards and fridge with healthy food, and her favourite snacks


4. Hose down the walls, bleach the bloodstains, make sure that the children’s advanced scurvy has cleared up


5. Purchase Velcro PJ’s. I. Will. Say. Nothing. Further. On. This. Matter.


6. Reintroduce simple personal hygiene: Brushing teeth, saying pardon when stuff happens, closing the toilet door, bathing regularly


7. Wipe at least the top layer of grease off the bathroom and kitchen surfaces, taking care to use economy-sized bottle of Domestos


8. Exercise atrophied limbs, get rid of computer-chair-shape flat butt


9. Practice speaking in normal tones, using adult language in the lost art of conversation


10. Slay the fattened calf, but remember to try to avoid getting bloodstains on the paving. Again.


11. Not Tweet, until you have something innocuous and impersonal to say…
    
    Hey, you think this is a bad list, you should see THIS GUY, he does ‘em badder, and better every day, the master of lists.

Neen returns Sunday evening.