A wife has called out her husband for an incompetent act at home, igniting an online firestorm.
And it all centres around the common chore of doing laundry.
Sharing a picture to Reddit of her loaded up clothes horse on an apartment balcony, the woman wrote the heading: ‘Asked my husband to hang the clothes’.
The photo showed a laundry airing frame piled up at the centre with a mountain of wet heavy clothing comprising of socks, underwear and kids clothes items.
Meanwhile, most of the end rungs only have a single t-shirt or other adult-sized garment slung over them. Some towards the back of the picture appeared to not even be properly in use.
The post and picture were shared to the popular ‘Mildly Infuriating’ Subreddit thread. Within hours, it had generated over 2,700 comments and over 32,000 upvotes.
‘Apparently there was no more space in the rack and everything else were “small items” (kids t-shirts, socks and shorts),’ the woman wrote.
‘[N]eedless to say, nothing at the top got dry.’
Sharing a picture to Reddit of her loaded up clothes horse on an apartment balcony, the woman wrote the heading: ‘Asked my husband to hang the clothes’
The post swiftly earned the ire of online commenters who were furious at the husband’s careless, sloppy and ultimately ineffective completion of the household chore.
‘Tell him to go redo it properly and don’t do it for him. He’s an adult and should be able to problem solve if he runs out of space,’ demanded one response.
‘Tell him you aren’t going to put up with that s***. Marriage is a partnership and you both have to do chores.’
‘Did you date him for less than one full laundry cycle before deciding on marriage?’ read another pointed response.
Another advised the wife to dish out some ‘home truths’ to her husband with a generous touch of ‘sarcasm’.
‘Ask him: “Do you understand how physics works?” Most men do. If there is no air circulation, then things can’t dry. It’s SCIENCE but it’s NOT ROCKET SCIENCE,’ another said.
Many infuriated commenters insisted the worst thing the wife could do next would be to ‘fix it for him’.
‘Better to hand it back and say “try again” than silently resent it every time,’ one advised.
Many of the replies suggested that the worst thing the woman could do was ‘fix’ her husband’s laundry mistake – and instead recommended offering him a painstaking tutorial on how to hang out clothes correctly
The most upvoted reply saw a woman recount her own similar anecdote involving her teenage brother.
She explained how her brother had similarly piled up wet laundry on a clothes horse, resulting in her giving him a stern warning to not do it again. When he repeated the ineffective drying action a second time, she taught him a lesson.
‘I decided to immediately fold his still-wet clothes and put them in his drawer,’ she explained in the reply that has received over 6,000 upvotes.
‘All his clothes were musty and damp the next day. He got very mad at me, but he miraculously learned to do it [hang clothes out] properly after that.’
Many advised that the wife should try something similar.
‘Fix your clothes, let his dry that way, his will stink and he’ll never do that again,’ one suggested.
But the heated online discussion evolved into a broader conversation around the notion of ‘weaponised incompetence’.
This psychology term has entered the public lexicon and refers to the manipulative tactic whereby one person pretends to be incapable of doing a task, or performs it poorly, so as to avoid responsibility and ultimately shift the burden of the task onto someone else.
It arises not only in personal relationship situations but also in the workplace.
In the context of the woman’s recent Reddit post, many comments felt this scenario was ‘weaponised incompetence at its finest’.
‘[H]e intentionally did that so you don’t ask him to do it again in the future,’ explained one person.
‘As a man this is infuriating,’ another agreed. ‘Your husband is clearly trying to get out of doing things and doesn’t respect you.’
‘He just can’t be ar*ed to do a proper job because he knows she will take care of it if he doesn’t do it,’ another added.
There were also stunned comments about the apparent selfishness of the husband’s larger t-shirts and jumpers being ‘hung correctly’ on individual rails – ‘while everyone else’s s*** is just flung onto the rack like trash’.
The husband deservedly received scathing criticism all throughout the comments for his perceived feigned attempt at hanging out the laundry.
But many commenters additionally suggested the wife should actively broach the issue head-on if she wanted to ensure her partner doesn’t repeat the ineffective job.
‘After seeing this, go to him and say, “Hey, babe. I didn’t realize you didn’t know how to hang laundry,” one suggested.
Many recommended she give him a painstakingly simple tutorial about how to hang out washing, as this would get the message across loud and clear.
Another reply suggested the wife should also encourage her husband to ask questions if he needed help.
‘All he really needed to do is say, “Hey, there’s no more space on this rack, where do you hang them when that happens?” Communication solves problems.’
