Household patterns

Each time Ben is away it strikes me how freeing it is in many ways. Dinner? Any old thing will do. Hey look! No one is dropping stuff everywhere other than Sam and frankly, I know what to do with Sam's stuff and can make it disappear if it irritates me. The laundry piles grow at a much more reasonable rate, the dishwasher can go multiple days without being run, our food bill is minimal, and the kitchen is neater. I don't feel any particular pressure to follow a schedule and I seek out other people to a greater extent which is something I should be doing more often anyway. There are no differences in opinion on how something should be done and I can hog the TV without guilt. And turn it off and read if I'm so inclined.

Of course it balances out though. As soon as Ben leaves something goes wrong. Once when he was gone I came home to a house filled with natural gas. Mmmm, lovely. One time his safe started beeping and I didn't know the combination or have any idea why it was happening. I couldn't reach Ben before my sanity was compromised so I hauled it to the basement and covered it with stuff so I couldn't hear it. This time the faucet on the sink is on the fritz -- it's gotten stuck in the "on" position a couple of times. I've been able to do some manipulating and get the water shut off both times but it's worrisome, especially because when I went to look for shut offs, I found they weren't under the sink where I'd expect them to be which means they must be somewhere in the wild basement frontier. Oh, and one of the cats was looking a tad under the weather but seems better now.

Why is it that sometimes it's easier when the person you love is NOT around? That there is a certain pleasure in being able to do whatever you please whenever you please?

Don't feel bad for Ben though because he feels the same way when I'm gone. He orders out for dinner constantly so he doesn't have to bother with cooking and can get all the things he loves and he knows I don't like, he leaves everything lying around wherever the hell he pleases, scratches a lot, cranks the volume on the TV and his music, parks Sam in front of the TV without guilt and doesn't clean anything up until right before I'm scheduled to arrive.

An no one steals the covers.