Marriage, Mental Load, and Micromanagement

I hope you had a good week. I worked a lot. I was on tour with the Rick Mercer stand-up comedy tour, and we did seven shows last week, so I wasn't home. I missed my family, but I'll tell you what, I didn't miss the fucking mental load when it comes to travelling. Here’s a story that will probably appall you. It’s something I shared a bit on social media, and people were like, “What happened?”

What Not To Text A Comedian Before Their Gig

It was Friday, and I was in Ottawa. I don't know what it was, 4,000 kilometres and a three-hour time zone difference away, I am getting ready to perform at one of the most beautiful venues in the country. It's the National Arts Center in Ottawa. It's gigantic. It's red, and there are lights. It's so formal. I even dressed up and wore heels for it, and I don't like to dress up for stand-up comedy.

So, I'm getting ready in my personal green room with big vanity lights, and then I get a text message from my husband. What did it say? Maybe, “Good luck, honey,” or “I'm proud of you for all the hard work you've done in your career.” No. My husband doesn’t say “excuse me” or “sorry to bother you,” he just wrote, “I can't find the pizza wheel cutter.” That's it.

In response, I wrote back, sarcastically, “Oh no, I'm about to do a show at the National Art Center in Ottawa,” and sent him a very short video. Basically implying that I'm doing something more important than helping him find the pizza wheel cutter. 

My husband's not a stupid man. He wrote back and said, “Wow,” and left it at that, because he knew what I actually meant was leave me the fuck alone right now, please. 

And this, my friends, is a prime example of the mental load and how it haunts women, even if they're on a stand-up comedy tour on the other side of the country. I don't know if he thought, 

• “Oh, maybe there's an area in our kitchen that I don't know about,” or

• “Maybe my wife keeps the pizza cutter wheel,” or

• “My wife must’ve hidden it while she’s gone on tour for the week.” 

Reverse Psychology: Domestic Dynamics

Women know this is something their male partners do, which is forget about the mental load. The mental load is such a big thing.

Everybody talks about the mental load when it comes to food, such as ordering all the food, although I will say I know how to get the deals. I know the coupon codes. I don't want to pay full price for many things, especially toilet paper. I will never pay full price for toilet paper. I would rather go to a coffee shop and get a few squares from the bathroom to last me until the next day, and then go somewhere else to buy toilet paper on sale. 

Anyway, I actually order all the food for my family, because I'm unable to do it myself. This is how you fall into the trap. I mean, you subscribe to the idea that you're better at it, or your husband at some point says, “Whoa, I can do it.” And then you're just like, “Let me do it, you idiot.” And then you end up doing it all. I've seen my girlfriends do this many times over.

One thing that many wives do that their husbands don’t do is manage social coordination and calendaring. My family has a shared calendar where I've added all the details. Still, my husband wakes up some days and asks, “What day is it? We have nothing today, right?” Even though we've got five fucking activities. In fact, all the birthdays of our family and friends are in this calendar, yet every single time it’s my in-laws’ – a.k.a. his parents – birthdays, I buy the presents, and then he gets the thanks and credit for it. And you know what? I don't give a shit, except I do. Obviously, I give a shit. 

Another thing I do is sign my daughter up for every school program, including after-school programs, lunchtime activities, and summer camps. Summer camps are extremely competitive to get into, especially the top ones. I could tell my husband, “Hey, sign up at the community center. It is at eight o'clock on this day in two weeks. Can you take care of it?” And then he'll be like, “What?” At that point, I signed up my daughter for the camps. I do that often.

This is a common occurrence that affects many women. Even if you don't have kids, you may still understand from your own life experience. Was your mom busy, or was she stressed? Or did she act like a bitch? I'll tell you why. It was because of your dad, probably, and the fucking mental load. I'll tell you how I fight back against the mental load. 

CEO Mom and Worker Bee Dad

I give my husband the physical load and a spiteful mental load. When he asks me, "What are we doing on Saturday?" I'll be like, "Oh, we're doing this and that." And then I'll say, "Where is that again? Can you map how far it is?" Or, for instance, if I'm doing something in the kitchen and he's on the couch using his phone, which is my least favourite way to see him, I'll shout, "Hey, can you grab this bowl for me?" despite not needing a bowl. You know what? I'm getting back at him for not taking on the mental load by taking on the physical load like a donkey, a beast of burden. 

And honestly, he is good in that way. He handles all the school drop-offs and pickups, as well as camp drop-offs, and prepares our family’s meals. So maybe it is just our situation, where I am the thinker and he executes. It’s as if I'm the CEO and he is the worker. 

Generally, it works out fine for most people, except it doesn’t work when you fucking ask me when I'm across the country about to perform a professional stand-up comedy gig at a really fancy place. He didn't even ask me. Actually, he didn't even ask me. He just said, “I can't find the pizza wheel cutter.”

A Tale of Knives and Pizza Wheel Cutters

I'm home now. I came home from the tour for about 72 hours. One of the first things I did was go into the kitchen to find the “pizza wheel cutter,” as he called it. And guess what? I did not find it either.

I don't know where it is, but I did find this very sharp Henkel knife. I believe it's a Santuko knife. I actually have a lot of Santoku knives because when I first became an adult, everybody was saying that the Santoku is the perfect generic utility knife. And I thought, “Oh, that's all I need to know.” So, I bought about five of these, and all I have are Santuko knives, as well as one really big bread knife for, of course, bread and tomatoes. That's enough for me. 

Anyways, now I've got this knife, and I'm going to use it to cut something, maybe the patriarchy, I don't know. Is this really a big deal? Yeah, it's a big deal. He didn't even say, “Honey, I'm sorry to bother you. I know you're busy, but I can’t find the pizza wheel cutter.” He knew I was busy. 

But no, there's no nice way to say it where you're not imposing on my day and negatively impacting the important work I'm doing for our family. We often write random jokes to each other for fun, so that's okay. Maybe he was sharing one of his foils with me for the day, like “Haha, I couldn't find the pizza wheel cutter,” and then I’d say, “Haha, look again,” or “We'll get another one, haha.” 

Since this was a household thing, I interpreted it as a reason for divorce. No, I'm kidding. I interpreted it as a domestic, male-female mental load thing. It is an invasion of my day, or a mark against my feminism. Except he told me he couldn't find the pizza wheel cutter because he wanted to know where it was. Thus, making the mental load heavier, as I now had to take a statement and turn it into a question, before I became very annoyed about it. 

Time to Buy a New Pizza Wheel Cutter

So, if anybody wants to send me a pizza wheel cutter, I'd be glad to receive it. In fact, you know what I used to have besides a pizza wheel cutter? It was menacing. My first favourite utensil for cutting a pizza was actually from a little company called Dreamfarm from New Zealand – they have the smartest products – that I bought online. As someone who loves design and engineering, I had to buy their product. (This is not at all sponsored, but if you’re reading/listening to this blog/podcast, and want to send me stuff, that's fine, as long as the tariff situation allows. I am in Canada). 

It's like a big pair of scissors, and the bottom is flat, so you can run it against a big pizza, a plate or a pan, and then cut into it with a scissor. It was quite genius. They also have a really ingenious thing that allows you to remove corn niblets from the corn cob without them all falling apart. 

Anyway, we now need another pizza wheel cutter, as we can't find ours, and we use it every week since we make pizza every week. So now we have to buy one. No, we're not going to buy one. I am not going to take part in this, because this is the physical load my husband's going to go out and buy a new pizza wheel cutter. I'm going to tell him right now. 

Thanks for reading.