Dialogue: Keep things simple, stupid

By SHELLEY BRIDGEMAN*

Most of the time we believe ourselves to be members of a rational species. We possess the faculties to reason, and the ability to apply logic helps us to make hundreds of decisions every day.

You have to wonder, then, why we sometimes do such stupid things. Quite simply, we're not always as bright as we like to think we are.

Take, for example, the conundrum that evolves from our busy, over-achieving lives.

We somehow have to find enough time in our day to do some exercise because we all know the importance of being healthy and staying in shape.

Gyms everywhere are still booming and new programmes are being introduced as fast as the Hollywood fads can cross the Pacific Ocean.

There are pump classes, circuit classes, cardio-funk, kickboxing, Pilates and so on.

But we are short on time, so something has to give.

That is when we hire people to do those essential tasks. While the contracted help are scrubbing our floors and folding our washing, we can head to the gym and work out all the many frustrations of the day.

It is called decluttering your life, so you can spend time on the activities that are important to you. It makes perfect sense, right?

Not necessarily. And even those hired to perform our chores for us can see the flaws in that plan.

Recently, a friendly neighbourhood lawn-mower man cheerfully greeted me with the words, "If you helped me with the mowing, you wouldn't have to do that," as I power-walked furiously by. He was so right.

Many people who can afford to believe that they should contract out their household responsibilities.

So we pay others to perform our cleaning, gardening, ironing, lawn-mowing and any other task that might cause us to break a fingernail or break into a sweat.

Then we spend hundreds of dollars more keeping fit in gyms, so we can be healthy and slender. It could be snobbery or it could be stupidity that drives the decision.

Or perhaps honest labour and hard graft are dirty words in some circles these days.

But as the lawn-mower man so sagely pointed out, if we could be bothered doing our own manual grind we would not have to participate in an organised exercise regime to burn kilojoules.

The great New Zealand bach is another source of modern-day rituals that defy logic.

A bach is as Kiwi as pavlova, Buzzy Bees, Jandals and black T-shirts. It is a part of our mythology, and if it is a modest box-like structure, so much the better.

Yet often the reality does not live up to the idyllic images portrayed in sentimental pieces in glossy magazines.

Oh, you definitely get away from it all at a bach. But is that always desirable? I think not.

The only things that women - and let's not equivocate, it is still the Kiwi sheilas who do most of the housework - get away from are the modern gadgets that make life easy.

Perversely, they trade their high-tech kitchens at home for some primitive and unhygienic setup at the beach. A rusty stainless-steel sink and rickety old stove and fridge don't deserve to be dignified by the term kitchen.

Yet suddenly these women are expected to feed a family and simultaneously keep food poisoning at bay with substandard equipment, and without those labour-saving devices that streamline the process.

After all, no self-respecting, genuine New Zild bach could possibly have a dishwasher installed. What would the neighbours say?

And this is supposed to be a holiday?

I'm sure many women would have more rest and relaxation if they packed the family off to the beach and stayed home alone with the ice-making, double-door refrigerator.

Ironically enough, the women who have a housekeeper or cleaner to help out at home in the city actually have to do their own chores at the bach on what is allegedly a holiday.

Now that is truly weird. We are an odd bunch at times.

*Shelley Bridgeman is an Auckland writer.