An admission

I am a ter­ri­ble house­keeper. I don’t dust, do win­dows, or even sweep that often. I will swif­fer, and spot clean the kitchen if I’ve been cook­ing. I’ll clean the toi­let and the sink before some­one I don’t know comes over. I will put the clut­ter on the table onto the side­board. But that’s about it. My major accom­plish­ment is usu­ally bring­ing my shoes back to my office/closet from the front hall.

I don’t like to do dishes. I do 90% of the din­ner cook­ing, and the gro­cery shop­ping, and the sun­dries shop­ping. I’m the one who pays atten­tion to what’s in the fridge, what’s get­ting low, etc. Every once in a while, I will get on a clean­ing jag, but that’s rare. And I will clean for large par­ties, or lesser-well-known friends com­ing over. And I’ve (mostly) given up feel­ing guilty about it. But I have a few pet peeves– I always wipe off my food prep areas with a sponge, and I try not to leave food out, or non-water bev­er­ages stand­ing in glasses. (I still can’t believe tea molds!!!) I don’t want mice, I don’t want ants.

And I get furi­ous, way out of pro­por­tion, when there are crumbs left on the counter, or smears of tuna, or what­ever. Leave aside the fact that the Bet­ter Half is the one who scrubs the tub every two months or so, does the dishes every few weeks (I’ve got to get rid of some tup­per­ware) and takes out the garbage and recy­cling. My inner shrew still freaks about the crumbs on the coun­ters and the stand­ing beverages.

Which is all a way of mak­ing my way, slowly but surely, to the fol­low­ing. As much as I bitch to the Bet­ter Half about the dishes, and wish he’d do a vari­ety of things I don’t need to start on, he always, always, always comes through when I am hav­ing a really hor­ri­ble time. While I was away last week­end, help­ing my friend move her stuff, he washed ALL the dishes. All of ‘em. Never mind they’d been sit­ting there awhile (again, mostly tup­per­ware), he got rid of all the dirty dishes so when I walked in, the kitchen was sparkly. And he changed the sheets and tow­els, so I would have a fresh bed to sleep in, and a fresh towel to dry myself with. He’s made me tasty din­ners twice this week, and if I asked him to do some­thing, he did it. And he kept up with the dishes all week, when I’ve been so stressed as to be mono­syl­labic and des­per­ately need­ing a drink every night when I come home from work. And he tells me he loves me every day, always is hugging/grabbing/molesting me, and reaches out to touch me in his sleep. The dishes are a minor issue in light of all of that. As he said, “I’m like a cat. A pain in the ass most of the time, but I’ll come through in a pinch and do my job when you’re unhappy.” Meow, sweetie, meow.