Irrelevant Cheetah

Due to a family emergency, my wife and stepson had to fly out of state this past weekend, leaving me and my six-year old to fend for ourselves all week. He’s been spending some time at work with me, and we’ve just been hanging out.

So, you’d think we’d do the bachelor thing, wouldn’t you? You know, beer cans and pizza boxes scattered throughout the domicile, half-eaten sandwiches languishing atop piles of dirty laundry while the dog faithfully chases some stray animal through the ruins. All of this would then be followed by a frantic cleaning binge during the last several hours before the return of the prodigal spouse, up to and including scrubbing the bathtub and disinfecting the pets.

Surprisingly, however, we have been remarkably well-behaved, and I’m not just saying that because she reads this thing. There are a few extra sci-fi DVDs lying around, but if you were to break into our house at this moment, you would be struck in awe by the overall cleanliness of the place. You might turn and say to your partner in crime (if you had one): “Wow! This house is obviously occupied by a conscientious, thoughtful father-and-son team, to whom hygiene and sanitation are very important.” You would marvel at the clean kitchen, the vacuumed floors, the clean cat litter box. Then you’d steal the TV and throw the ball a few times for the dog, who would be very grateful.

So I wonder: Does all of this mean I’m more responsible? Am I finally (shudder) growing up? Is it just that I don’t want to spend my entire day on Saturday cleaning up the mess that we should have kept up on during the week? Or is it that I’m suffering from a slight case of writer’s block, and the way I deal with that is by cleaning?

I’ll never tell.