The difference between men and women part #10987: the morning routine

AOIFE! WHERE'S THE SHAMPOO?!

IF you want to know the real difference between men and women all you have to do is observe the morning shower routine.

I had been living with my now-husband for about a week when I realised I was going to have to kill him. Shame an’all, but that’s the way it was going to have to be.

At the time I was getting up at the ungodly hour of 6.20am to commute several hours to work so - to be considerate - I adjusted my morning routine of loudly singing in the shower and watching old episodes of the *Gilmore Girls* while I got ready to something more sedate.

I would leap up at the first trill of the alarm and slink, in the dark, into the bathroom. There I would shower by the glow of the streetlight outside, keeping my wash to a regulation three minutes lest the hum of the Triton wake His Lordship.

I would dress in the clothes I had nicely hung up in the ensuite the night before – not wanting to open and close wardrobe doors and presses, silently brush my hair and slap on some foundation, using only the glow from my mobile phone to light the way.

Fully dressed I would creep out of the bathroom and whisper noiselessly to the door, pausing only to pick up my handbag and shoes. I wouldn’t dare put ON the shoes you understand, in case the heels woke him, instead I would wait until I was actually outside the front door to put them on.  I didn’t mind doing this; it was just the way it had to be surely? When you move in with someone and share the same room as them? A bit of consideration.

My serenity and lack of bitterness lasted about two days until I had a day off work and Yer Man was the one getting up early.

I was woken at 7am by the dulcet tones of Ian bloody Dempsey bellowing in my ear for a full five minutes before the alarm was, grudgingly, switched off.

In he pounded to the bathroom, leaving the door open, shower screaming, steam billowing, stretching and yawning loudly and scratching his ... anyway, scratching.

Shower done he pounded back into the bedroom, naked, absentmindedly doing the Mickey Mambo, opening and closing drawers, standing up on the bed to retrieve a jumper from the press.

Dressed he started taking his inhalers – he’s asthmatic, though I’m convinced he just does it to annoy me – which involved a huge amount of deep breathing and puffing regardless of who was silently screaming into their pillows desperately trying to get back to sleep.

He then clattered down the stairs, two at a time, to the kitchen where it was Ian bloody Dempsey again at top volume and lots of banging and thumping as he made his lunch.

This is quite common among my female friends, their fellas too operate an ‘If I’m up EVERYBODY’S up’ mentality and apparently it doesn’t get any better when the kids come along.

Mammy friends tell me that when it’s their husband’s turn for a lie in Mammy gets up before the alarm, scoops the child silently out of the cot and creeps downstairs, keeping the little mite occupied for several hours so Daddy can sleep.

When it’s Daddy’s turn to get up he’ll make as much noise as possible, sing to the baby, inexplicably do the Mickey Mambo, turn on every light in the place, turn the telly on to an ear splitting level and come in to the bedroom at five minute intervals ‘just to check’ what cereal little Sneachta likes.

Men – would you be up to them? What’s it like in your house? Are you the noisy one? Or do you feel like battering your partner to death every day at 7am? Please, tell me it’s not just my husband?