A Cleaning One Trick Pony

I’m a dishes guy. I don’t know how it started, exactly. Maybe it’s something that happened over time, like the slow burn of a good fire. Or maybe it’s the tangible nature of the task. There are a certain number of dirty dishes in front of you, and you clean them off a little and put them in the dish washer and then there are no longer any dirty dishes in front of you, just an empty, clean sink. Or maybe it’s simply because washing the dishes, to me, is not as painful as, say, mopping the floor or folding the laundry. I don’t know. Whatever the case may be, it’s a fact: I’m a dishes guy (not in a weird way, though).
My wife knows this about me. For a long time I tried to hide it. You see, by not disclosing my okay-ness with doing the dishes, my wife would be more likely to accept — praise, even — my willingness to do the dishes when it came time to clean up around the house a little. Oh, don’t worry, honey, I’ve got the dishes. You just worry about literally everything else. To me, the logic was sound.
Eventually, though, she found out about the logic. It was only a matter of time, really. I’d set the plan in motion long ago (something I may have even conceived in the womb) and had begun to viciously unravel. So fair play to her.
Shortly after there was this in between period where she knew about the logic and chose to tell me in at least a handful of conversations we had, but I blocked her out, clamming up at the thought of having a conversation about cleaning, choosing instead to live in a world of blissful ignorance, hoping that it would all magically resolve itself. Something my wife eventually chose to use against me. Which looked like this:
Wife enters room. I’m in the room already. Probably reading the dictionary. She says something about the house getting a little messy. I put the dictionary down, a weight gathering in the pit of my stomach. She proceeds to list off a bunch of tasks that I have the choice of doing. It’s a terrible list, with one exception. Washing the dishes. It’s on the list. I get excited. I try to mask my excitement. I go for pensive. Then, almost solemnly, I accept the responsibility of doing the dishes. My wife nods in agreement. I leave the room and begin washing the dishes, a smug smirk of satisfaction on my face, knowing that, once again, I have bested my wife. My wife remains in the room that I have just left, playing on her phone, not doing any other cleaning task because the house was never messy, it was only ever the dishes, a smug smirk of satisfaction on her face, knowing that, once again, she has bested her husband.
For a while, this unspoken arrangement seemed to work for both of us. My wife got me to do the dishes basically whenever she wanted to, and I got to do the dishes instead of folding the laundry, even though there was no laundry to be done. But then one day it all changed.
It was a day like any other, really. I was in my study, eating an apple and reading the dictionary out loud. “Cogent,” I said, before taking a bite of the apple. My wife entered the room. Seeing me in such a healthy and scholarly way, she almost certainly felt all the butterflies and excitement of our first kiss, but, in fear of voicing such strong emotions, chose not to discuss it. Instead, she said something about the house getting a little messy, and listed off a bunch of chores that needed to be done. A list that, yes, included doing the dishes.
Not wanting to come across as over eager, I reclined in my chair, took a bite of the apple, and looked off into the distance, pensive. After much contemplation, I solemnly agreed to do the dishes. As I had done many times before. Next came the part where my wife nodded in agreement and I exited the room, a smug smirk on my face, knowing that, once again, I had bested my wife, feeling slightly guilty for using my cunning and clever ways against her, but feeling entirely superior as a human being at the same time, yadda yadda yadda. Except that part never came. Here’s what happened instead:
Me (after much contemplation): “Okay, I’ll do the dishes.”
Wife (after no contemplation): “Mm, I’d rather you swiffer the floor.”
This was entirely unexpected. Sure, we’d probably had plenty of conversations like this before (we had), but I was only hearing it for the first time. I was a deer in the head lights.
My wife proceeded to speak calmly and eloquently. About splitting up the cleaning responsibilities evenly, and my reluctance to do any chore other than the dishes. Or at least I’m pretty sure she did. While she was busying talking, I was busy performing mental arithmetic — carry the one, square the swiffer the floor, subtract an apple pie — trying desperately to make sense of what she had said. But the numbers weren’t adding up. I kept arriving at seven, which I knew was incorrect.
Even so, I knew she had a point. Deep down, I had for a long time. I really was reluctant to do other chores. Especially something like swiffering the floor. So, after a short back and forth between my wife and I (there must always be a back and forth in these spousal discussions, even if I know I’m wrong, because, like in tennis, the more times the ball goes back and forth over the net, the more exciting the point), I conceded and agreed to swiffer the floor.
Wanting to find the perfect word to sum up the moment, I flipped through the dictionary to a page I had earmarked days ago, knowing subconsciously this day would soon arrive. “Compromise,” I said, and gave my wife a hug.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: some of the details in this story have been embellished or entirely made up in a desperate attempt at being funny (like the bits about the dictionary and the apple and the hug at the end), but a lot of it did actually happen (like the quote), and the story itself is true.
