How to give instructions to a man

The following scenario has happened in our house several times lately:

”Darling, can you collect all the white laundry and put it in the machine please? It’s time to wash a machine with white...” I asked my husband one morning. Sure, he replied, collected whatever he could find in the various laundry baskets and went down to the laundry room. When I came down to said room about one hour later to take care of the wet laundry, I see that my husband had done exactly what I had asked him to do: he had put all the white laundry in the machine. Perhaps it’s a female thing, the reading between the lines, I mean. The part with the dots, the ”it’s time to wash a machine with white...” is implicit that once the dirty laundry is in the machine, detergent should be added and the start button pressed. A man does not read between the lines, the instructions were to put the laundry in the machine. The instructions said nothing about washing powder and getting the machine going. 

It was not the first time this had happened. The other times, I just sighed loudly to myself. This time I couldn’t help myself from being somewhat sarcastic. I called for my husband and said in an overly pedagogic voice: ”Honey, it’s time I showed you how the laundry machine works. Do you see this compartment? This is where you put this powder, called laundry detergent. One scoop is enough. In this compartment, you put this liquid, called softener. Just put a little. This is the start button, press it, and voilà, it starts. Do these simple steps every now and then and I will be enormously grateful. I’ll even praise you on Facebook if you want me to.” My husband did not find my poorly disguised lecture very funny, he muttered that he did indeed know how to start the laundry machine and the only reason he hadn’t started it was because I didn’t tell him to do so, I had only told him to put the laundry in the machine and that’s what he did.

My husband did take notice; not that he has spontaneously collected any laundry and started a machine but he has unsolicited started the dishwasher several times as well as emptied said kitchen appliance on numerous occasions. I’m very happy with this progress. And as they say: ”Rome wasn’t built in one day”.