My husband is of the firm opinion that there is a huge difference between “cleaning” and “tidying.”

We’ve had a lot of very verbose conversations about this. I’ve tried time and time again to figure out what the fuck he thinks the fucking difference is, but as far as I can gather, “tidying” is what I do when I throw out all the garbage in the house and sweep the floors and wipe down surfaces and re-arrange the shit we actually wanna keep in a nicer way after. “cleaning” is what he would do, if he did something like that. “Cleaning” is better, firmer, and more masculine.

I’m not really sure what the problem is, though, as he doesn’t really clean or tidy, so part of me does admittedly feel like he should be gobsmacked grateful for whatever he can get in terms of ANY big push. A lot of my energy is spent closing cabinets and throwing out small trashes and putting food away behind him. He’s like a fucking tornado sometimes. You can tell exactly the path he’s taken after getting home. His shoes first–flung in two directions in the entryway. Then we’ve got pants, belt still attached. Then random items, used and then deposited. Cups and tissues, q-tips and floss sticks.

The kitchen at some point is reached–we know this because the bread is out and open to the air, the cabinet containing plates is still screaming, and every condiment we own is spread across the island. The utensil drawer is definitely open. The fridge, legitimately, might still be beeping desperately. He is not here anymore, however. He is outside smoking, the destruction he wrought behind him totally forgotten, if it was ever acknowledged at all.

I honest to fuck do not mind this. I will sooth the terror left behind with affection, honest to fuck I will. It kinda tickles me, to be real.

What doesn’t tickle me is what happens later. He sighs, facing a dish that I have used previously. “You really need to rinse your dishes,” he snaps, long-suffering and wise, and I literally wanna bite his fucking dick off.

The correct answer to this delusional suggestion is always to say, “Yah, you’re right.”

I do this.

Sometimes he is enjoying it too much, though, and doesn’t let it drop. He, the human tornado, begins to lecture me on my habits. I am unclean. I am not gentle enough with objects. Through not rinsing the dish, I have made life more difficult for him, can’t I see that? And let’s not forget the (at minimum) HOUR he spent cleaning up my takeout, yesterday.

This is tricky territory.

I did, indeed, leave takeout trash out yesterday. This morning I found one bag inside another on the table. I threw this out during the few hours I spent throwing all the trash out, but it is true that he did put that one bag in another bag.

I assume this is what he means by “cleaning up my takeout” and am confused how this small, inconsequential action took him an hour, but saying that is stupid, so I say that and the floodgates open.

I need to admit to something at this point. I have no fucking clue which of us is delusional. Could totally be both of us. It’s at least one of us, though, because I believe he feels the same as me. This dumb baby truly does think he spends his life cleaning up after me. I feel the same. I spend my whole life cleaning up after YOU.

And I don’t even mind! I’m a goddamn saint, why not admit that. You’re a trash baby and I’m basically an angel, booyah.

One of us must be wrong.

It is imperative, in this moment of screaming and crying and not cleaning OR tidying, we figure out who it is.

Something different happened this night, though.

She heard us upstairs. She was in her room asleep, and when we get to this place of yelling and trauma and tears, we forget she exists, we must. She began to cry, too, and her worries were kid worries, candy-wrapped and clutched in sweaty sticky hands, and we hated each other but we softened for a moment to talk to her gently.

You felt bad. That’s why you left, after, out to the hammock to smoke.

She’d stopped crying, but her little hand was clutching hard at my fingers, and her dark eyes were liquid and bright in the soft light from the hall. I sang her a quick song. The lullaby from adventure time, Everything Stays, and her grip slackened.

I left.

I lay down.

I fell asleep.