Three years and $4300 in counselling finally revealed to a local couple that they stayed together because, at their very foundations, she was a janitor and he was a slob. This symbiosis set them on an odyssey that lasted for decades.
His skill in knowing when to turn the place into a dump was finely honed. Had it been as clean as she liked she’d have nothing left to do, surely, than turn her attentions upon him.
She, on the other hand, saw him as an inanimate thing to tidy, far down her voluminous to-do list. Her life goal was to wrestle the dust bunnies into submission and then, having achieved Cleanliness Nirvana, prohibit any further activity or movement. Sitting stalk still minimized mess.
Then she could accuse him of ‘sitting around doing nothing’. That would be the instant he spilled dust from the chip bag on the rug, starting the whole cycle again.
The circle was proportionate; it made them both unhappy. The argument became ‘who was MORE unhappy?’ This led to furtive muttering, hermit-like avoidance & violent triggering even by normal behaviour (“You just keep breathing, breathing, breathing!!!”)
Sudden pretexts to leave the house arose; things like league bowling or Mushroom Identification Club. A passionate interest in Genealogy was sparked, the intention, discovery of which ancestor’s mutated DNA was to blame for her infuriating obsessiveness. Her weaponized Grey’s Anatomy binges were countered by militant sessions of Star Trek, right down to his singing the theme song, the words to which only the very, very weird know. Enthusiastic flings into cooking occurred. Question: How much white liquid shoe polish could you really put in the Linguine Alfredo before all his hair fell out?
At some point equilibrium was achieved, his snoring was no longer rationale for death fantasies, the recent addition to the house, intended to be a den, instead became a soundproofed bedroom for her.
They had reached a stable state of affectionate loathing, so acerbic and piquant that normal, everyday social interaction was no longer desired because it had become a complete and utter bore.
Vince R Ditrich © 2019 :: All Rights Reserved :: Random Note Generator :: A One-Man Magazine :: http://www.randomnotegenerator.com
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