Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

I hate housework! You make the beds, you do the dishes—and six months later you have to start all over again.—Joan Rivers

Before I was married, I shared an apartment with two of my cousins. We swore an oath: if calamity were to befall any of us, the survivors would rush home and make the victim’s bed, do her dishes, and burn her letters** before mothers and aunts arrived on the scene. **[Clearly, this all occurred in the days when chips only came in potato or poker flavors, instead of micro.]

If you think becoming a mother made me more relaxed about my own mother’s visits, then either you are a husband or you have a very good cleaning lady. Take the time Mother called to say she was coming for a brief visit. Although I’d been eating lunch when she called, somehow by the time she hung…