Esther McCarthy: I like my workmen sexy, not sexist!

I asked for sexy workmen, and now I'm stuck with a potbellied dinosaur who thinks women should never have gotten the vote!

Hello, helpline? Yes, hello. Is this the right number for logging problems no one else will listen to you about? 1800NEWL?

Great. Who am I speaking to? George is it? I have an issue I’d like to address, please. My problem is I specifically asked for sexy workmen, and I appear to have been dispatched sex ist workmen.

This just isn’t good enough. I’m into Week Four of this carry-on, and I haven’t been titillated once. And George, what’s really worrying me is that somewhere there’s an idle Hugh Jackman lookalike bulging out of a pair of overalls. Meanwhile, I’m stuck with a potbellied dinosaur who thinks that women should never have been given the vote.

How do I know that’s what he thinks? BECAUSE HE TOLD ME. More than the once. This cannot go on, George. I have a tether, and I am at the end of it.

You need to sort this out.

Oh, you need more proof before you can escalate my complaint? Well, buckle in, buddy. Get a load of this.

So, after much deliberation, I go and choose a fetching honeycomb paint tone for the hall and landing that the children of the household take one look at and declare to be in the babypoo colour wheel and proceed to berate me loudly and unfairly.

One son is on the point of tears and demands it to be painted over. “But 10 litres of this cost all of your college funds,” I explain gently.

I also point out, quite reasonably, that the three of them were all invited to partake in the colour-choosing part of the task long before the highly anticipated sexy painters arrived, and no one bothered their arse to even pretend to give so much as a cursory glance at the brochures; ergo, I chose it myself.

I hold up the message I had sent to them in the group texts: Oh yes, I bring receipts, boys.

Much like the little red hen, here I’ve gone and done all the work (not the actual manual work of like, physically putting the paint on, obviously, but the mental load sits squarely on my shoulders, you ingrates) and now instead of reaping the reward like that industrious little galine and having myself some warm crusty crumbs of praise for my immaculate interiors eye, I am listening to this guff about why we have bile on the walls.

While I am having this robust confrontation with my sons, George, do you know what the painter is doing?

Not painting. No, he is leaning on the bannisters, enjoying the show.

“Well, I like it, and that’s all that matters,” I say, perhaps a tad on the petulant side; I’ll admit that.

“Ye wimmin,” says the painter. “Tsk. Ye wimmin. That’s yer problem, ye wimmin always think yer right.” Then he went outside for a fag, while I washed out the boys’ ears.

The next day, he comes out with more nuggets for me, whilst I am trying to trick the dog to taking his medication by buttering the tablet. He keeps just sloshing it around his mouth and then plopping the now buttery half-decimated pill out on the floor and watching me trying not to gag as I pick it up and throw it to him between treats, hoping he’ll just swallow it down. Nope, he pops it out again, delighted with himself.

“I’ll have to get one of the lads to do it,” I say.

“Ye wimmin, ye do be looking to be equal, but then ye give the men all the hard jobs.”

Thursday’s offering is as I roar at one of them to hurry up.“Ye wimmin, the only way a man could be happy with ye wimmin is if he marries a mute one.”

George, Friday, I am at the sink, handwashing the pots that some lazy lout has tried to sneak into the dishwasher, thinking about the billionty little tasks that have to be done that day when the painter walks past.

“Ye wimmin...” he started.

“RIIGGGGHT,” roars I.

“I’ve had enough of this tired, casual misogyny out of you, pal. You keep this up, and I promise, I’ll go through you like a door.”

I waggle my washing-up brush at him for emphasis.

“You’ll be buried out that back garden there, and I will dance on your boooones.”

He looks at me aghast. George, I swear to you, in the moment, I am willing to do time for manslaughter; I am flicking through my brain database trying to recall if there is any precedent for menopause being used as a defence in a homicide trial.

Then do you know what he said, George?

“I only asked: ‘Are you winning?’” he said.

Whoops, my bad. That is another one of his sayings.

Then he throws his eyes up to heaven. “I’m telling ya, ye wimmin, ye’re all psychos.”

So George, after you’ve dealt with my sexy/sexist mix-up, I’m wondering if you can put me through to the hotline that helps harried women dig large holes, and do you know if they provide the shovels and the bags of lime? Thanks a mill.

Yes, I’ll hold.