I am my own butler

I am obviously in the wrong century. Sometimes I read about physicians in the 19th century who worked hard tending patients and exploring science and how on world worked, only to wonder how on earth did they find time to do it all. The answer: they have servants, often a handful of them. There was someone to cook their meals (The Cook), clean the house (The Maid) and someone in charge of them all to run the place (The Housekeeper. If the fellow was lucky he also had a butler, a sort of righthand man to mind his appointments, his clothes, and make sure the wine collection didn’t run dry. I was born in the 20th century (worse luck!) where a man was supposed to be ‘self-sufficient’, able to do all of these people’s jobs on his own. I don’t know about you but I ain’t doing to good running a household and working. There are a few solutions: retire; let things go (the usual solution at La Casa de Spo); hire someone well over four feet to take on some of these responsibilities. Alas, Babylon! Butlers are not to be found on Craig’s list or otherwise, so what am I to do?

I recently heard a podcast (as is my wont) with a guest professional butler who gave advice on how to better run your household. One of his recommendations was to create something called “The Butler’s List”. It is a manual of sorts, within lies a schedule of which days you do the weekly things (and if they were done) and due dates of infrequent tasks like changing the air filters or calling the water system man (or someone like him) to change the filters under the sink. I do these things on the ‘gee this looks like it needs doing” such as a the floor looks dirty or piles of papers are about to fall over. As for the air filters, despite my attempts to remember when they were last changed, I don’t remember and they get changed less frequently than they should.

Another aspect of The Butler’s List is it contains the name and numbers of all the handymen, such as The AC man, The Plumber, The Veterinarian, the fellows who do the yard and the pool. Oh! please include that nice fix-it fellow whose business card I can’t find at the moment. It’s better to dig the well before you are thirsty, and this goes double for mechanics if there is a sudden leaky pipe or the electricity goes out.

As an added bonus this allows me to make lists – something I find jolly good fun and helpful too.

Mr. Butler from the podcast pointed out this list is a ‘living thing’ with continual updates and edits as the handymen die off or disappear. The Butler List also includes a grocery. When I make my own I will use paper and not a spread sheet, lest circumstances thwart getting into computer such as a power outage.

Brother #3, who is clever with techie toys, points out if he puts something on the grocery list he shouts out for Alexa or whatever the thing is called these days to make it so. I daresay if you ask nicelyMs. Alexa could remember all the names of the handymen or when was the last termite inspection happened, but I don’t have such a device, nor will I.

Someone too would think The Butler’s List is silly but then he doesn’t worry such things as when did we last put salt in the water cooler or for house maintenance in general. I do.

Come to think of it I should have been a butler; I think I would be good at running a household.

Call me Jeeves and let me at it.