It annoyed me that I was always getting up early, driving to work in the rain and snow, standing in traffic jams for three hours and listening to my bosses, while my wife was at home in a warm bed all day. Honestly, I envied her. My children are eight and twelve years old, they are quite independent, and any fool can peel potatoes and leave them to boil.
My wife was annoyed by my whining, too. She suggested that I swap, that we do each other’s business for the duration of my vacation. For two weeks she would go to work at the salon where her friend worked, provide for the family financially, and I would take the kids to school, pick them up, and feed them all.
I didn’t really want to waste my long-awaited vacation on such nonsense, but my wife said that if I didn’t give up and I liked it, she could get a permanent job and I could quit.
She left for work in the morning and got me up too – to wake the kids and get them ready for school. It was quite an adventure to find a school uniform for each of them, then make them eat breakfast and take them to school on foot. It was less than two kilometers, but I was still a little unprepared – I was used to taking the bus everywhere. Then, on my wife’s orders, I took my clothes to the dry cleaner, went to the supermarket, and had a fight with the saleswoman. Before I had even made it home, it was time to take the children to school.
There I heard from the teachers that the youngest in the classroom watching cartoons on the phone, learn not learn, you need more time to pay her when writing homework. While at home I quickly made lunch and sat the kids down, I remembered that I forgot to clean up and do the laundry. Did that, then did the dishes for the kids, sat down to supervise their homework. For the youngest, I wrote almost everything myself. I hung the laundry, and the ones that had hung on the dryer earlier I began ironing. As I finished, my wife said she was on her way home from work and would not say no to something tasty for dinner. I fiddled with it for a long time, regretting that I ever took it on.
Set the table for my sweetheart, and the kids came running in, too. We all ate supper, my wife went to watch TV, tired after work, and I again took upon myself to do the dishes. I barely made it to bed and fell asleep right away.
The alarm clock woke me up in the morning – weekdays and school hadn’t been cancelled.
– So, do you like it? – My wife asked me before I left. She looked very cheerful and happy. – People are already asking me if I can go next week. I think they’d love to hire me. You think about it till tonight, too, and tell me so I know whether or not to take it.
I’m ashamed to even admit to her that I’m tired for the day and want to go back to work. Loving things for money is much more enjoyable than doing laundry, cooking, and homework for free.
