Ellen's Strike

Confessions of a farmer's frustrated wife

          “All you ever give a damn about is reading and sewing!” 

          How many times had she heard that in the past decade?  The last time it was accompanied by the threat, “I’m going to throw that damned sewing machine out and make you get a job!”  

          Make her get a job?   

         Only yesterday she had moved seventy piglets weighing twenty to thirty pounds a piece from the farrowing room to the nursery…moved them two by two one in each hand.  She had helped transport ten sows who did not appreciate being uprooted from the farrowing house to outdoor pens.  And, she washed, dried, folded and put away five loads of laundry, changed the bed clothes on three beds and swept the floors in a house that attracted dirt like a magnet.  Poor Hank (the threat declaring, mistreated dictator) was forced to fry hamburgers for their supper while she organized the last of the laundry and saw to it their two sons were bathed before supper. 

           Get a Job?           

          Just last week she had spent three days helping Hank the Tyrant rebuild a disc.

            On the previous Saturday they transported sixteen sows from the thirty-two capacity farrow room…and spent the greater part of two hours chasing one sow who went crazy when freed into the wild outdoors around the farm.  It was difficult to say who ended up in worse condition, Ellen or the sow.  The sow’s sides heaved from exhaustion but Ellen had tripped over a fence and pulled a tendon in her ankle.  A week later, she was still limping.

             The more she thought of Hank’s latest tantrum the more it infuriated her. So all she cared about were reading and sewing, huh? 

             Sewing was a necessity left from childhood.  Ellen’s earliest memories included times when money would not stretch far enough for a new dress for Christmas or Easter.  Her mother was very skilled at recycling hand-me-down dresses into fashionable designer imitations.  And her mother had ingrained the pride of spending twenty-five dollars for material she could sew into a suit rather than spending a fifty dollars on a dress she would only wear once because it did not fit properly.  Hank had once commented the time she ‘wasted’ sewing made the extra spent twenty-five dollars worthwhile. 

           Ellen wondered if all men were that dense and unreasonable.  

          She read to relax.  At the end of a day filled by dull housework, boring bookwork or exhausting outdoor labor it was heaven to forget herself in someone else’s fantasy.  So what if she sometimes got so caught up she read until two a.m.?  That certainly shouldn’t bother Hank.  He snored through everything.  Storms, the baby’s two a.m. feedings, the telephone, the necessity to stoke the heat stove with firewood on excessively cold nights.

              Ellen often thought if lightening was to strike their old farmhouse and set it to fire Hank would merely keep snoring while she rushed their two sons to safety.  She vengefully decided, once the boys were safe she would rescue her sewing machine first.  The file cabinet that held all the farm records was easily accessible from the kitchen door.  If…she guiltily supposed…if there was time she might consider salvaging it too. 

           Revenge was what she wanted.  That would wake up the chauvinistic pain in the rear.    Then she remembered how her mother had once gotten her revenge.

                                                                                   *** 

           Ellen lost a considerable amount of sleep…fifteen minutes or so…after she decided just how she would exact her revenge.   When it came right down to it Hank was a good husband.  He rarely raised his voice to her in anger…never his hands.  Of course, she sensed sometimes he kind of wanted to…but so did she.  Right then, a good pounding on his stubborn brain with her iron skillet did not seem unreasonable.  She controlled the house checkbook.  He rarely even looked at it unless she shoved it beneath his nose and he never paid any attention to the items she bought shopping. He was stern with the boys but he also laughed and played with them.

            Ellen guiltily remembered her last ill-fated pregnancy.  While it was true neither she nor Hank were happy about its untimely occurrence, both had accepted the pregnancy by the third month when she began to experience complications.  When they lost their third son Hank stayed by her side in the hospital.  He didn’t cry but he held her while she cried….many times thereafter in the weeks that followed.

            Just yesterday he had taken off an entire afternoon to get the boys a puppy.  Of course, that trip also included a much needed stop at the local Farm Service Agency and the Agri-business where they purchased feed and other supplies.

            Ellen remembered once when her sewing machine broke down when she was making costumes for a school play Hank had driven into town during a snowstorm to have it repaired. 

           On the other hand, she had to lug clothes into the laundromat for two months until he decided their worn out wash machine was beyond repair and found time to purchase a new one.  She had been waiting for repairs on the terminally ill vacuum sweeper for nearly a year.  It did seem unless she pitched a royal hissy fit Hank let most things around the house go until he got tired of doing without them.

                                                                        ***

            The next day, Saturday, proved to be more a compromise than a battle. 

           Hank had already left the house when she and boys rose to eat cold cereal for breakfast.  Last night’s supper dishes remained in the sink.  The bathroom needed a good scouring and the utility looked as if its floors were packed dirt.

              While Ellen stood in the hall wondering if she had the nerve to carry out her plan, Hank burst through the door yelling,  “Ell, we got a guilt having pigs in the fattening barn!  Get your boots and come on!”

            Ellen wanted to scream, “No!” at him but she didn’t have the nerve. 

           This really was an emergency.  She had seen whole litters of pigs lost when a sow farrowed among the other sows. 

             Sure enough, this guilt had produced fourteen piglets in a pen with ten others.  Four of the piglets were already trampled.  Three lay where they could easily be squashed…or eaten.  On top of that, an old sow had died during the night and lay blocking the gate into that pen. 

           Nearly an hour later, Hank decided it was necessary to also move ten more guilts from that pen as they were producing milk.  They could farrow any time within the next twenty-four hours.  So, while Hank, Jr. ran off the open the crates in the farrowing room, Billy played well in sight but a safe distance from all the commotion.  Ellen manned the tailgate on the farm truck backed next to the loading chute.  Hank proceeded to herd the guilts ten guilts who did not appreciate being uprooted from their comfortable pen onto the truck.  

          Noon was passed.  The boys were grumping with hunger when ‘Boss Hank’ gave Ellen permission to run up to the house to gather lunchmeat sandwiches, pickles and potato chips for them to munch off the tailgate of the pickup along with a gallon of milk to wash it all down. 

           Less than forty-five minutes later the family trooped back into the farrow barn to unload the guilts.  Billy played in the feed storage room while this time Hank, Jr. manned the gates and both Ellen and Hank chased the guilts up and down the aisles.[1]   

         Another two hours passed before all the guilts were confined.  Ellen slipped on her injured foot twice while Hank, Jr. barely escaped several racing guilts.  Hank, with his long legged six-foot plus height merely straddled one determined guilt that turned on him several times.  Finally it was over and Hank, utilizing his most engaging, toothy grin asked, “Say, El, want to rest a while?”

            She answered him with a totally blank, open-mouthed stare.   

         “You can wash the wheels on the pick-up,” he announced most innocently.  

          “Why?”  she managed to choke.

             “So I can paint them,” Hank replied as if she were a total dunce.  

          “Why me, Lord?” Ellen prayed as she and Billy scrubbed the aluminum wheels on the pick-up. 

           Later, Hank raised a condescending eyebrow while he glanced around the messy house.  T.V. dinners sizzled in the microwave.  Hank, Jr. and Billy were taking turns in the bathroom.  Hank indicated the dwindling pile of firewood off the back porch.  “We need to make more wood,” he said.  Ellen ignored him. 

           Later still, bathed and comfortable, snuggled beneath the bed covers Ellen burrowed into a best selling novel with a sigh when a large hand grabbed the book from her hands and dropped it onto the floor.  One long muscled arm attached to that hand stretched over her head to switch off the lamp.  Wide, tender lips covering hers squelched her sputters of protest. 

           Later again, as Ellen lay against the warmth of Hank’s long lean, familiar back, she thought, “How can someone so wonderful be so dense?  There has to be a way to get through to him!”

            Hank continued to snore contentedly.

            The day had been a total waste.  Hank had not given a moments’ thought to the clutter in the house and no one had gotten to spend more than five minutes with the puppy!  Maybe she’d just start sleeping on the couch.

            A warm hand reached around to gently pat her hip. 

           Oh, what evil had prompted her to even consider leaving their bed?  Hank had even whispered those unexpected (but much appreciated) three words tonight.

            Sleeping alone was not an option…especially when the hand patting her hip curled around her thigh and gently drew her closer.

            “I love you,” he had said, “I don’t think you realize how much I love you.” 

           “Well,” snapped that nagging little voice in Ellen’s head, “He doesn’t realize how much you love him either.”

                                                                               ***  

          By noon Sunday both boys’ bedroom floors were heaped with discarded clothing and toys, a giant collection of wet towels littered the bathroom, and dirty dishes spilled over the countertop in the kitchen.  Ellen proposed to ignore them all not so much out of revenge as the fact that she simply lacked the motivation to tackle them.  She curled on the couch prepared to nap the afternoon away but Hank grabbed hold of her hands and hauled her to her feet.

            “Time to cut wood!” he announced happily. 

            “I want to rest!” Ellen wailed in despair. 

             “Rest!”  Hank exploded.   “All you do is rest!  No wonder you’re getting so fat!” 

           Now, Ellen detested that extra roll three pregnancies had deposited on her abdomen.  She knew her rear was considerably wider than during her teen years.  And she was certain each year past thirty was adding flab to her chin.  But that remark was uncalled for!  She stubbornly crossed her arms over her breasts and declared, “No!” 

           “No?”  Hank raised one condescending eyebrow.  Ellen refused to be intimidated.

            Fifteen minutes later Hank, with both boys and the chain saw, drove off to the woods. They met Ellen’s parents at the end of the driveway.

            “I don’t know what’s wrong with El,” Hank told them.  “She hurt her foot last week but that’s not it.  She won’t do nothin’.  Just lies on the couch.” 

           Ellen’s father joined Hank and the boys while her mother went on to the house.  The woman’s eyes popped at its messy condition then at her daughter curled on the couch.  “Are you feeling all right?” she asked.

            “Just fine,” Ellen replied.  

            “But the house….”

             “Mom, do you remember the time you got so mad at Dad you refused to pick up and wash his dirty clothes for a week?” 

           A slow comprehending smile stretched across the older woman’s face.  Ellen and her mother enjoyed a lovely visit.

                                                                               *** 

           “What did you and your mom do this afternoon?”  Hank asked as he fished around in the sink for a not-too-dirty glass.

            “Talked,” Ellen answered evasively.

            “Are you sick?”  Genuine concern filled Hank’s face while he rinsed the glass. 

           “Just tired,” Ellen replied truthfully

.            She received that eyebrow but no comment with it.

           When she decided to settle in front of the television with her current project. Hank inquired nastily, “Aren’t you done with that thing yet? You’ve been working on it for a couple years!” 

           “It’s my mother’s birthday present,” Ellen returned in the same tone of voice.  “So what if it takes two years?  At $5.00 per hour that’s….let’s see.  365 times two is 730.  Seven hundred and thirty times five…that’s $3,650 dollars.  Say!  On second thought…. here…”  She shoved the half finished embroidered table clothe at him, “Burn this.  We can just give Mom the money!  She would love that!” 

           Hank slunk behind a magazine grumbling beneath his breath. 

           Ellen had actually shut him up!  Gee, where had all those numbers come from?  She hoped they were right!

                                                                              *** 

           “Mom!  My Ninja Turtles shirt ain’t in here!”

             Hank, Jr. owned a whole closet full of shirts but refused to wear all but three of them.  Hank, Jr.’s momentary frustration was not a priority, Ellen decided into her morning cup of coffee.  “It’s dirty!” she answered.  “Wear something else to school today!” 

              What were the priorities anyway?

              She had not lifted a finger to do laundry, dishes or clean floors for three days but Hank barely noticed.  In fact, the only one benefiting from her ‘strike’ was Billy.  He had never gone so long without being told to pick up his toys!

            Abruptly Hank poked his head around the kitchen door displaying that boyish grin as he produced a large bouquet of daffodils.

            “Where did you find them in the middle of March?”  Ellen gasped.

            “By that old house foundation across the creek,”  he explained. “Like’em?” 

           “They’re lovely,” Ellen sighed as she reached into the cupboard for an antique vase she kept for such rare surprises.  Humph, she thought, how did that man always manage to astonish her like this when she least expected it?

            “You gonna do housework today?”  Hank asked.

            “I ought to, don’t you think?”  Ellen asked giving an overall glance at the messy kitchen. 

           Hank shrugged as he turned to go outside.  At the door he paused. “Did your Mom really get so mad at your Dad she didn’t pick up his dirty clothes for a whole week?”

            So, her father had confessed, huh?   That was a conversation she wished she had heard.  Ellen could not squelch a sudden wild burst of laughter.

            “What’s the matter with you?”  Hank wondered defensively.

            “Nothin,” Ellen managed to compose herself and wipe the tears of mirth from her eyes.  “You go on to work.  I got enough to keep me busy here most of the week.” 

           “Ho-kay!”  Hank sang sending her a broad salute as he strode out the door.  

           “Men!”  Ellen scoffed, shaking her head at the dirty dishes spilling from the sink onto the counter.  Her ‘strike’ had reached some kind of compromise, she supposed.  She was the one to have learned a lesson.  It did not matter how annoying or unreasonable her chosen partner for life sometimes was, when the chips were down, when the moments really, really counted, he was the one closest to her side, the one who held her heart, carried her dreams and was thoughtful enough to bring her flowers when she least expected them.  She hoped he always would.