The only time I mind lacking the domestic gene is when it comes time to iron my business suit.

For this working woman, baking involves a can of diet soda and a box cake mix. While cleaning house, I cleanse my sink with a half-used facial wipe. This laundry lady knows three colors:  pink, white and everything else.

My aunt sewed the pinstriped, sand-colored suit for me shortly before the end of my college career, and my mother pressed it to perfection before each job interview. Under their guidance, it never would have sported an unflattering crease or a wrinkled pleat.

But these days, wrinkles and creases haven't mattered. More often than not, I don't need a suit for rural Missouri reporting. Actually, the trendy pattern with traditional fabric is rather impractical for tromping through cornfields, hanging out near pigpens and following a class of second graders during their field trip to Wal-Mart.

This past week, I started interviewing for jobs again. While my mother and my aunt may have kept both my suit and I in-line during the college phase of my life, this time I'm stuck ironing out this problem solo. My mother suggested some sort of product and told me if I used it, I wouldn't even need to put water in the iron. I paused. The plastic ironing board I had as a child didn't have a slot for water. I just twisted the fake knob, pretended I felt heat and pushed out the creases on Christmas stockings and Barbie clothing.

An old friend volunteered a failsafe method too. Like so many other problems, I could work this one out with a hot shower.  Supposedly if I steamed up the bathroom it would simultaneously roll the wrinkles from my suit.

Still, I opted for the standard iron. As I pushed the on-button, a third concerned individual decided to aid my endeavor. As I worked out the creases, my roommate's cat pushed his paw at me and came dangerously close to adding cat hair to my less than perfectly ironed suit.

After an afternoon of selling my skills to a potential employer, the suit tired just as easily as I did. The wrinkles came back.

I spent Labor Day weekend lakefront with my domestic super girls. Halfway through my three-hour commute I realized I should have brought my suit. After all, I had another interview in less than a week. Just like no one makes a bed or cooks like my mom, no one presses clothes like her either.

I've often said the Missouri School of Journalism should have plucked a few "non-journalism requirements" from my degree and taught me old school shorthand instead. Perhaps, I should have taken home economics somewhere along the way or at very least paid more attention to my mother.