The Cohabitants 21

It was 6:30 in the morning, the day after her first root canal and she woke up ornery. Then she saw the paper towel on the livingroom carpet, code for don’t tread on me. Her ego filled her with certainty about what she was seeing. Weeks ago, she had been watching the man sweep the kitchen floor, a rare sighting, spontaneous, like he was suddenly inspired to dance with the broom. A pyramid of shoe grit and tiny awful things took shape as he pushed it into the corner beside the dog’s bowls. Then he leaned his broom against the wall and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Aren’t you going to sweep that up?” she asked when he abandoned the task.

“It will be there when I get back to it.” He took a sip, left the room and she was alone with her trauma.

It was unimaginable to her, unfathomable to leave such a task incomplete. It made no sense. Cleaning was about completion, resolution, restoration. Cleaning was not dancing. Why would he sweep if he wasn’t going to dispatch the pile in a dustpan? How could he just leave that there and walk away?

She couldn’t concentrate. Her mind was in turmoil. The tidy perimeter of the pile blurred into disorder. Entropy. Random hairs began to float away. Grit swirled in the airflow of their footsteps. The dog’s water splashed, mudded and caked the grime against the baseboard. Schmutz. It was a nightmare.

The man came home from work, ate dinner a few feet away from this blackhole sucking up her consciousness and failed to notice. Another day passed while she waited for him to finish his task. Then she couldn’t wait anymore. In a frenzy, the pile was gone, never to be mentioned again. But not forgotten.

Her resentment was preserved like a turd in a hatbox. So, when she saw that paper towel on the carpet, it was deja-vu all over again. She could see what was beneath it with her eyes closed. The dog must have barfed during the night. The man put the paper towel over it to be sure they didn’t step in it. Her hatbox exploded. Why do I always have to be the one that cleans up the dog puke? Why me? Why can’t he clean up the dog puke? He never cleans up anything. He just throws a paper towel over it and walks away. Poor me.  

There was a process for handling this: methods, tools, and disinfectants, beginning with a big metal hamburger flipper for lifting the solids without mushing them into the rug. She got down on her knees, spatula in hand, churning assumptions and regrets. Then she removed the paper towel, and dang! Something wasn’t right. No dog puke. She put her face to the floor and sniffed the bluish wet spot. Atomized mint-ish piney ammonia. Somebody cleaned. Epiphany. Cringe. Reflection. She was a crank, living in the past, a fossil of her gripes. And in that moment, she felt herself evolve.