The household dilemmas that divide us, which side are you on?
There are two kinds of people in this world and, like it or not, petty household dilemmas reveal true colours.
Team Careful are the folks who always take their shoes off at the door, use a top sheet, and stack their cutlery with the pointy ends down.
Team Devil-May-Care don’t like bare feet and sleep with just a duvet, but say you can never have too many decorative cushions.
Both sides are adamant that the other is living life, well, wrong.
We’ve rounded up the great household debates so you can figure out once and for all, which camp to call your own, and maybe jot down a few points for the next sparring match with your better half.
Shoes on or off?
For some people, being asked to remove shoes is a downright imposition. For others, it’s the only right and hygienic thing to do.
Stuff’s chief news director, Clio Francis, and Homed reporter Kylie Klein-Nixon argue the point.
Clio Francis says ‘shoes on’: “I love to wear my shoes inside. I luxuriate in them. I wear them inside all the time. At my house, at my friends’ houses and even at my parents’ house. I have no desire to take them off.
“Why would I expose my feet to the cold, heartless tile in my kitchen or the unforgiving surface of the wooden hallway?
“Besides, removing shoes exposes a truly frightening piece of the human anatomy – feet. Those smelly, wiggly, pale things.
“Leave them contained in the stylish foot wrappers you personally selected at a special shop. If people complain of filth, explain the merits of vacuuming.”
Kylie Klein-Nixon says ‘Shoes off’: “Mum and I have a running battle – I’m a shoes off person, she’s a shoes on person. I just think it’s gross to walk street crud all over your house, also slippers are comfy and relaxed, and being comfy and relaxed is what being home is all about. She thinks none of that is a thing and keeps her shoes on at all times.”
Taking your shoes off reduces wear and tear on carpet or floor surfaces, you don’t tromp dirt or worse into your own home or someone else’s and, if you live in an apartment, it can also be a courtesy to those below you.
Hang the toilet paper under or over?
Toilet paper rolls were invented in 1891. Since then, households around the world have argued about which way they should go.
In 2016, “relationship expert to the stars” and TV therapist Dr Gilda Carle, devised a personality test which deduced that “people who roll over are more dominant than those who roll under”.
I believe hanging the paper over makes it easier to reach, not to mention cleaner, without dirty fingers scrabbling on the painted wall behind.
Seth Wheeler, the inventor of the toilet paper roll, seems to agree. According to Google Patents, drawings filed by Wheeler back in 1891 show rolls of toilet paper hanging over.
Whether the toilet should merit its own room, is another matter altogether.
Cutlery facing up or down?
The dishwasher is an appliance with the potential to spark many a domestic argument. Some say ‘the only way is up’, others prefer their cutlery point-down and their kitchen, accident-free.
Ewan Sargent says cutlery goes heads up: “Every dishwasher manufacturer will secretly admit that cutlery placed in a basket with spoon heads, prongs and blades facing up comes out cleaner and drier.”
OH NO, but you might prick your fingers on a knife or a fork…
Seriously? You probably won’t unless you are blind or drunk, or both, but anyway so what? A little jab to remind you not to drink and stack is nothing compared to enjoying a lifetime of cutlery clean enough to eat off.
Jo McCarroll says cutlery goes blade down: “If you have a sharp pointy object, face the pointed end away from you. Don’t put it, sharp side pointing out, inside an opaque box in which you regularly grope around blindly.
“That’s not just my view either. Dishwasher safety experts (#careergoals) recommend the handle up approach for anything sharp. Miele, Fisher & Paykel, Samsung – if you look at the instruction manuals for their dishwasher models, they suggest loading knives and forks pointy end in.
“If you load handle side down, it’s likely the bit of the flatware that you later put inside your mouth is touched as the dishwasher gets emptied. Next time you use it you might as well be licking the fingers of whoever did the unloading.”
Top sheet or not?
My partner firmly agrees with GQ writer Maddie Lange, who stirred up a great controversy when she called the top sheet a scam.
“It can bungle itself into a long coil, where the sheet has wrapped around itself in a central spin that resembles a twisted Parmesan breadstick. It drifts up to bother your pillows. Most often, it forms a baseboard mountain range if it has been kicked during the night,” Lange said.
Her solution? “Just to have a duvet with a cover. Easy. Grab one side of it and throw it and let it land over the bed.”
I, on the other hand, side with Homed writer Anabela Rea, who said that a bed without a top sheet is simply not a bed. “There’s something about sleeping without a top sheet that makes me feel like I’m slumming it,” she wrote.
“Beds have top sheets because that’s part of what makes it a bed. That’s why fancy hotel beds have immaculately tucked top sheets. The top sheet is class, luxury, civilisation. Anything less is the realm of university dorm rooms.”
How many cushions on the bed is too many?
Homed reporter Kylie Klein-Nixon has no less than 12 decorative cushions on her bed: two standard pillows, two European pillows, four large decorative cushions and five small decorative cushions…Oh, and one life-sized Yoda plushie.
“Don’t judge me too harshly. I grew up with one wafer-thin, antique eiderdown pillow that I suspect was a hand me down; I’ve got years of billowy soft goodness to make up for,” she wrote.
“You spend your whole life taking them off and putting them back on! What’s the point of that? What’s the point of them?” challenged digital producer Darren Bevan.
It takes Kylie a grand total of 16 seconds to push them off her bed: “Even groggy, sleepy-eyed Morning Me only takes about two minutes to make the bed and pile my squishie lovelies back in their spots.”
To which, Darren rebutts: “It’s a bed. It’s not a cushion palace, or an emporium of soft furnishings for you to splay your knitted wares, or your latest fashion accessory that matches with your boudoir’s ceiling.
“At a push, I’d maybe allow just one for the centre – but even that’s stretching my tolerance levels a bit far. The bed should be clear to allow immediate access.
“Plus, if you’ve got 10 cushions going from top to toe from the pillows to the end, where the hell are you going to place them before you get in? On your dirty floor? Or piled high on a chair like some kind of cushiony Jenga? The best place for cushions is a sofa. And that’s that.”
This article originally appeared on stuff.co.nz
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