Sunday, November 1, 2015

In-House Experiments

Do you ever run small anthropological experiments in your house just to see what's going to happen?

I do. All the time. Like leaving an empty Vegemite jar in the fridge and secretly using the one in the pantry just to see how long it'll take for Iven to cave and admit that it's really empty. Or not throwing away mouldy foodstuffs to see how long he'll keep shaving the mould off the cheese despite the threat to his health. That man really likes to live on the edge.

I've actually had a small experiment going for the entire length of October which I could only just reveal - being that it's now November. For all of October I had the calendar hanging on the back of the toilet door opened to November. Okay, it was an accident but when I noticed what I'd done the next day, I decided to leave it and see how long it'd take for someone to say something about it. I was pretty sure that no one would actually change the calendar because that seems to be my job and mine alone. But I'd notice if they did and the experiment would be over.

My toilet door is covered in cork tiles and cute animal photos. Makes for a more pleasant toilet experience if you ask me.

A week passed and no one said anything. Each day I'd sit on the throne and chuckle to myself about how unobservant my family is. In the second week my cleaning lady told me that it was on the wrong month so I then had to explain what I was up to. She understood exactly what I was doing - providing myself with scientific proof that men are less observant than women. And so far she'd helped out the women's case enormously. We were now at 100% for observational skills.

By the end of the month I'd heard nothing from the male side of the equation. Zip. Zero. Nada. So yesterday I revealed to Iven that he'd unwittingly been a participant in my study. And apparently my observation, that 100% of males wouldn't notice that a calendar was on the wrong month, was incorrect. He had noticed but he'd assumed that I didn't like the October dog as much as the November one. He just hadn't bothered to comment about it.

So my experiment proved nothing except that 100% of males in the household couldn't give a rats about the calendar. And that 50% of the males probably didn't even see it because they rarely bother to shut the door.

Why do I bother?!!

11 comments:

  1. hahaha!!! That's too funny...I've often forgotten to turn my calendar until the last week of the month! Oops!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I laughed when I read this because I've lived alone (mostly) since the early 1990s so very rarely shut the door.

    Perhaps they take a book in, or their phone so are otherwise distracted?

    ReplyDelete
  3. My desk pad is still on August 1998!

    ReplyDelete
  4. When I turned my calendar to October (it's apparently my job too), I accidentally flipped to November too and I thought, well, I'll just leave it and see if anyone notices. They all did, but no one bothered to change it....because, it's my job after all. I think my daughter just liked November up because it's her birthday month. The boys were like, "Who cares? We have a calendar on our phone!" Males!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I don't have a calendar. I just look at the expiry date on the milk to get a rough idea. My boys didn't close the door either. It was disgraceful. I tried leaving the empty toilet rolls on the floor once to see how far they'd let it go but in the end I caved and cleaned them up.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I think the excuse of you liking the November dog more is quite good. I hope there's nothing wrong with me but I notice things like that immediately and would have changed it back also. I'm also too old school to use the calendar on my phone...

    ReplyDelete
  7. This could happen in our house too. I bet he would never notice it either.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Men (and boys) just don't care about that kind of stuff, do they? I've done similar experiments with things around the house, wondering how long it would take before someone takes care of some obvious thing, and it always ends up with me finally getting fed up and taking care of it myself!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ha! That's gold. Oh I could leave ironing on the kitchen stool waiting for my husband to walk past and take it up to the bedroom and it would sit there. Once I did test the theory, it sat there for 2 days until it drove ME crazy! How did he not see it????

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking the time to comment. I love hearing from you.