In Which I Discover the World-Shaking Truth About My Wife

Longtime readers know I love my wife. We’ve been together over thirteen years, after all. And after thirteen years, you’d think I knew everything there was to know about her. You’d think I’d know what to expect from her in just about every situation imaginable. So picture my surprise when I opened my drawer this morning to take a shower, and I discovered it. Incontrovertible proof of something that only became clear to me this morning. In that very instant.

What was inside that drawer? What terrible, awful truth did it reveal?

Clean laundry, my friends.

Clean. Laundry.

Not that clean laundry in my house is anything really surprising. I mean, Denisa’s been keeping me in clean laundry for over a decade.

Or has she?

You see, yesterday she finally went a bit too far. She got the kids ready for school, made lunches, cleaned the kitchen, watched the baby, organized her bread order for the week, lesson planned for her classes, graded tests, figured out dinner, cleaned the bathroom, checked on her mom’s flight, answered emails, got the kids snacks, played with MC outside, organized the pickup of our family pictures, spent time with the family, then went down to Portland to pick her mom up at the bus station, leaving at 9pm and getting back at 3am. And I think we can all agree that all of that constitutes one heck of a full day.

And yet there was the clean laundry, staring me in the face, daring me to come up with another explanation. Any other explanation.

But I couldn’t. There is no other possible way my wife could have washed, dried, and folded my laundry in addition to everything else she did yesterday. It all points to one fact:

She’s using House Elves.

This is a difficult thing to admit. I don’t normally like to narc on my wife, but I don’t see any way around it. In hindsight, I should have recognized the signs: her ability to get so much done on so little time. Her high cleaning standards. The way food magically appears at meal times. Her refusal to let clothes just lie around any old place, where they might accidentally be handed to the wrong elf.

It was all there in black and white. Hermione would be appalled.

So what do I do now, friends? Do I say nothing, and live on the backs of the downtrodden? Do I confront her? Am I supposed to stage some sort of intervention? I’m at a loss. My life hasn’t prepared me for this sort of encounter.

I went through the house from attic to basement, looking for where she’s keeping the house elves. I’m convinced it has to be down in the crawl space. There are some spots there I just can’t wriggle into. It must be simply dreadful for the poor things. And to think Denisa’s been doing this all along, and I was so clueless . . .

I blame myself, really. I know she wasn’t into House Elves when we got married. I must have pushed her there over the years, encouraging her baking and her teaching, all the while eating food and getting clothes dirty. I just didn’t think I’d push her that far.

But I’ve had some time to think about it now, and I might have come up with a plan. I won’t let her know that I’m onto her. I’ll start trying to help more around the house to alleviate the poor House Elves’ suffering. And I’ll leave socks in strategic places throughout the house, particularly in books. They’ll be accidentally freed, and my hope is we can just get through this.

Has anyone else out there had anything like this happen to them? Any closeted House Elf users out there want to give me pointers on how to approach the problem? I’m all ears. Wait–no. That came off wrong, since we’re talking about elves and all. I meant to say . . .

Inquiring minds want to know.

In the meantime, wish me luck.