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Section: Life & Leisure

The Balance Sheet
By Susan Hannen

I keep two sets of books, one in my desk for the monthly bills, and one in my head to keep a running account of who does more in our household. I understand that this does not express the highest part of my nature. I’m not proud of this other set of books and I only consult it under duress.

I clean the house, shop, cook, do the dishes, pay the bills, make the bed, take the garbage out, wash the sheets and towels, and take the car for regular maintenance.

My husband washes his own clothes because he doesn’t trust me with his whites. He also changes light bulbs that require a ladder, captures rogue bats and birds that mysteriously find their way into the house, paints the interior and exterior of the house as needed, and is generally responsible for anything requiring a wheelbarrow, climbing around on the roof, putting up drywall, or snaking plugged pipes.

We never negotiated this division of labor. It just evolved according to our respective strengths and weaknesses. I, for instance, am an early riser, so I take the garbage out. I have laser-like vision for cat hair and those tiny white pieces of paper that fall out when you rip a page from a notebook, so I vacuum.

He has unfailing radar for structural decay. He can stand in a room with his ear cocked and be able to hear exactly where our hundred year old house is crumbling and then shore it up. He admirably defends the castle from the onslaught of Lake Erie winds.

Sometimes I hold the ladder or keep my thumb in the dike, and sometimes he whips up one of four culinary delights he’s mastered, but the division of labor remains pretty static.

And this system works. Most of the time.

Periodically, because we’re both Libras, for whom balance is everything, one of us feels like things are out of whack, unequal, unbalanced. I tend to get cranky and feel like a martyr straight out of The Lives of the Saints when we’re expecting company.

Cooking, cleaning, shopping, washing, and fretting, all fall to me. The sight of my husband with his feet on the coffee table, wolfing snacks and watching Lou Dobbs, has me prissily ticking down my balance sheet. And when he innocently asks, as I bang his legs with the vacuum, “Do you need any help Honey?” I answer, “Under control.” Clipped. Snotty.

I yank the cord from the wall so hard it hits me in the arm. Helplessly, I hear the words come out of my mouth, “Why do I always have to do everything?” As soon as they’re out I grab at them like they’re dollar bills in a wind booth at the county fair. Them’s fightin' words and the fightin' ensues, for about an hour, during which I am subjected to a torturous litany of This Old House heroics.

He too, I see, keeps a sanctimonious ledger of “who does more?” in his head. And it’s every bit as careworn and fastidious as mine. Exhausted from ten rounds we always end up flopping on the sofa and agreeing: “See? It all evens out. It’s all equal, just different.”

But I know what we’re both thinking. “I still do more!”


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