From a January 26, 1947, contract between Kurt Vonnegut and his
pregnant wife, Jane, to whom he had been married for sixteen months. Kurt Vonnegut: Letters, edited by Dan Wakefield, will
be published next month by Delacorte Press.
I, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., that is, do
hereby swear that I will be faithful to the commitments hereunder listed:
I. With the
agreement that my wife will not nag, heckle, or otherwise disturb me on the
subject, I promise to scrub the bathroom and kitchen floors once a week, on a
day and hour of my own choosing. Not only that, but I will do a good and
thorough job, and by that she means that I will get under the
bathtub, behind the toilet, under the
sink, under the icebox, into the corners; and
I will pick up and put in some other location whatever movable objects happen
to be on said floors at the time so as to get under them too, and not just
around them. Furthermore, while I am undertaking these tasks I will refrain
from indulging in such remarks as “Shit,” “Goddamn sonofabitch,” and similar
vulgarities, as such language is nerve-wracking to have around the house when
nothing more drastic is taking place than the facing of Necessity. If I
do not live up to this agreement, my wife is to feel free to nag,
heckle, and otherwise disturb me until I am driven to scrub the floors anyway—no
matter how busy I am.
II. I
furthermore swear that I will observe the following minor amenities:
a. I will
hang up my clothes and put my shoes in the closet when I am not wearing them;
b. I will
not track dirt into the house needlessly, by such means as not wiping my feet
on the mat outside and wearing my bedroom slippers to take out the garbage;
c. I will
throw such things as used-up match folders, empty cigarette packages, the piece
of cardboard that comes in shirt collars, etc., into a wastebasket instead of
leaving them around on chairs or the floor;
d. After
shaving I will put my shaving equipment back in the medicine closet;
e. In case
I should be the direct cause of a ring around the bathtub after taking a bath,
I will, with the aid of Swift’s Cleanser and a brush, not my
washcloth, remove said ring;
f. With the
agreement that my wife collects the laundry, places it in a laundry bag, and
leaves the laundry bag in plain sight in the hall, I will take said laundry to
the Laundry not more than three days after said laundry has made its appearance
in the hall; I will furthermore bring the laundry back from the Laundry within
two weeks after I have taken it;
g. When
smoking I will make every effort to keep the ashtray I am using at the time
upon a surface that does not slant, sag, slope, dip, wrinkle, or give way upon
the slightest provocation; such surfaces may be understood to include stacks of
books precariously mounted on the edge of a chair, the arms of the chair that
has arms, and my own knees;
h. I will
not put out cigarettes upon the sides of, or throw ashes into, either the red
leather wastebasket or the stamp wastebasket that my loving wife made me for
Christmas, 1945, as such practice noticeably impairs the beauty and ultimate
practicability of said wastebaskets;
i. In the
event that my wife makes a request of me, and that request cannot be regarded
as other than reasonable and wholly within the province of a man’s work (when
his wife is pregnant, that is), I will comply with said request within three
days after my wife has presented it. It is understood that my wife will make no
reference to the subject, other than saying thank you, of course, within these
three days; if, however, I fail to comply with said request after a more
substantial length of time has elapsed, my wife shall be completely justified
in nagging, heckling, or otherwise disturbing me until I am driven to do that
which I should have done;
j. An
exception to the above three-day time limit is the taking out of the garbage,
which, as any fool knows, had better not wait that long; I will take out the
garbage within three hours after the need for disposal has been pointed out to
me by my wife. It would be nice, however, if, upon observing the need for
disposal with my own two eyes, I should perform this particular task upon my
own initiative, and thus not make it necessary for my wife to bring up a
subject that is moderately distasteful to her;
k. It is
understood that, should I find these commitments in any way unreasonable or too
binding upon my freedom, I will take steps to amend them by counterproposals,
constitutionally presented and politely discussed, instead of unlawfully
terminating my obligations with a simple burst of obscenity, or something like
that, and the subsequent persistent neglect of said obligations;
l. The
terms of this contract are understood to be binding up until that time after
the arrival of our child (to be specified by the doctor) when my wife will once
again be in full possession of all her faculties, and able to undertake more
arduous pursuits than are now advisable.
http://www.harpers..org/archive/2012/09/0084030
Thanks to southern poet David Howard for bringing this story to my attention.
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