Domestic Bliss

by Emma B

Source: Flickriver

‘FEET!’

I’m vacuuming. I have been doing so for the last fifteen minutes and he’s sitting on the couch staring at his computer with his feet in my path. Somewhat surprisingly he doesn’t hear the vacuum getting louder as it draws closer, but my high-decibel yell breaks his concentration.

‘MOVE!’

He looks up.

‘Move. Your. Feet.’

‘Sorry’, he mutters, disgruntled, hastily snapping his knees upwards.

‘Can’t you hear, I’m vacuuming! What is wrong with you?’

He holds my gaze and raises his eyebrows at me.

'Alright, chill.'

----

‘You used my toothbrush!’

‘How do you know?’, I say, giving myself away.

‘I position my toothbrush with the brush-head resting on the toothpaste.’

‘Right.’

‘I don’t like it touching the surface. It’s been moved.’

‘Look, it was a mistake okay? I though it was mine,’ I respond with a sideways eye-roll.

‘Don’t roll your eyes like that! I saw you!’

I kiss his cheek. He smiles.

----

‘Oh my God, this is relentless!’ 

I huff and puff up the steps and plonk the plastic laundry basket full of freshly spun garments at his feet. The third load of the morning. 

‘Agh! You do it, I’ve had it,’ I bark, frustrated. 

He knows it’s his turn. I’m about to lose it. 

He gets up from the couch and grabs the basket just in time.

----

I’ve had the worst day. Having just spent nine hours of my life staring at a screen with a white-blue hue, tap, tap, tapping on a keyboard, I am walking to my car, rubbing my eyes. 
My day was one of those days with so little mental challenge that gives you plenty of time to reflect on life since, well pretty much since birth. 
Disgruntled after a day filled with negative musings yet relieved to have left such a stifling environment, during my drive home I struggle with the temptation to walk in the door and share my foul mood with him.

‘Hello gorgeous,’ he says, those blue eyes beaming over at me from his position on the couch. My self-loathing and world-hatred disappears as I jump up next to him, childlike, and rest my head on his chest.

---- 

At my writers group earlier this year, we agreed to each write a short essay on ‘Living With A Man.’ At the time my fellow writers were, for various reasons, temporary members of the ‘I Hate Men Club’, so my topic suggestion was met with a strange mixture of horror and relish. 

I too have had some horrific experiences of living with men, but they were not the first things that came to mind that week when I put pen to paper. I decided to relate a few little scenarios that had happened during the most recent two weeks. 

Reading back on them now I feel so grateful for those little things - the small things that get you through the mundane.