HAVEN’T you sat at table one day and, when the first person to serve dinner opens the dish, the missus goes, ‘Eh Nakyejjwe! You mean you cooked matooke again? 

 

Is there no posho?’ Or, you’re all seated in the living room, you reading Bush at War by Bob Woodward and wifey and the children are watching one of  those wrath-inducing farces, say the aptly named Desperate Housewives or Second Chance.

 

In the children’s bedroom, a sharp wail pierces the night. Wifey’s hands are free, as are yours, but wifey calls out to the housie: Matama, don’t you hear the baby crying? 

 

Let’s consider another scenario. You’ve been using the bathroom for three months… yes, three months, and it has not been scrubbed. The tiles are slippery due to grime, the plumbing tricky due to blockages and everything that can possibly go wrong has already done so.

 

Meanwhile, day in, day out, the two of you go out to your media house job (for her) and the telecom company job (for him) and labour away, meticulously tending to the reporters and sub-editors’ needs, supervising their work and answering for their ineptitude and the telecom guy making sure the engineering department supersedes last year’s superb performance.

 

And your bathroom is grimy; you have to take careful steps there to avoid breaking your legs. Yet the moment the calendar reads May 1, you want to celebrate Labour Day. Hold it right there awhile.

 

Who married who, and for what? For once, I’ll not apologise for my views on the separation of roles. Ordinarily, the guy marries a woman as what the Bible calls a helper. Hey, hold your guns, let me make my argument. This is what a helper does: S/he aids the helped party in what they ought to do, but might not have done or done well.

 

They organise the helped party. They put order in the helped party’s life and affairs. Madam, that is your role. Bless the Lord who knew I needed your help. So yes, you need to cultivate your career, but you’re the helper. You need to hang with the girls, but remember your helper role. And since you’re itching to say, but why doesn’t he do those things himself; why must it be me, let me again say it: YOU are HIS helper. His manager.

 

Of course, you need your job. Of course, you’re not his servant. You can’t do your job and be expected to be in the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. True. Neither do I think you can do all those crazy things. 

 

But see, you’re in charge here. When someone is entrusted with a mission, they come up with a log of what needs to be done, with whatever facilitation and ensure that what they should attend to, but can’t do directly, is being done. Do you have that plan? Are you helping? If not, how can you even celebrate Labour Day? Where do you qualify from?

 

Then this being at home and you can’t even tell what is for supper until it is served. Really! Come, let’s reason together. Who’s the helper here? Who, after I empty the car boot of the matooke, Irish potatoes and packets of baking flour, should ensure that after forcing down sweet potatoes for three quarters of the week, we should at least change to noodles?

 

Let’s agree that this is the last Labour Day we celebrate, until we sort out the labour in the home. Let’s agree that we sort out who the helper is, and that she is attending to her primary role. Okay, now get the cross, the nails and hammer out…