As her deadline rapidly approaches, Weezie Alton, a columnist for the Ellettsville Daily Telegraph, just can't seem to find the inspiration for her latest offering of "Weezie's Whimsies." So she does what any other self-respecting writer would do. She procrastinates.

And in the process she engages in a monologue that centers on
women's domestic life:

• advice to women over time on sex,
  relationships, marriage, cooking, and housekeeping
• the tasks expected of women in the home
• the effect of "modern conveniences"
• the impact of domestic science and the like

"Miss Halloway, my home ec teacher, liked to talk about the history of domestic science... Domestic scientists did time studies and motion studies and broke down every task to its basic elements in search of organization and efficiency. Save steps, save time, plan, plan, plan.....I remember what Phyllis Diller said about planning. `Don't spend too much time planning meals,' she said. `You don't want a charge of premeditation.'" -Weezie

The product of a family blessed with feisty foremothers, Weezie ranges from 19th century advice to the new bride on intimate matters to 20th century women's magazines. From 1950's home economics textbooks to 1970's The Total Woman to 1990's The Rules to the 21st Century's The Surrendered Wife. From an account of the long-ago Monday wash day--the great domestic dread of the household--to the raptures of "salad architecture" and "Spaghetti Scandinavia."

Along the way, she turns to her Sisters of the Quill and Skillet, "domestic humorists" like columnist Erma Bombeck, Peg Bracken, even Phyllis Diller and Roseanne Barr for their responses to the gendered expectations of the home.

"But then, I've never exactly been a threat to Martha Stewart in the art of homemaking. Let's just say that guests never walk through my glass doors. Again I'm in Erma's camp.....instead of honing her skills as a seamstress, she considered a fallen button as God's way of telling us the shirt was wrong." -Weezie

"When I was in college in the mid-60s--I swear this is true--there was a two-semester, 6 credit course called Hope Chest 61A and 61B....I didn't sign up." -Weezie