I trudged into the kitchen one morning. So early, it was still dark. Because at some point, I’d had this hair-brained idea that I could do remote work from 5-10 am every morning and spend the whole day with my kids. Which would have worked out all right except that I generally need a nap by about noon.

So I stumbled into the kitchen in the dark between Zoom meetings on this fateful day. I took the cap off my reusable water bottle and set it on the counter while I filled the bottle.

When I turned around to put the cap back on, it was not there.

I spent several minutes thinking I had gone crazy before I thought to ask my husband (who was also awake and in the kitchen at the break of day) if he had seen it.

Not only had he seen it, but he had decided that it was out of place and needed to be picked up.

But instead of picking it up and doing something that like a regular person (ok, a mom) would do, like wash it and put it in the dish drainer or maybe even wash and dry it and put it in the cabinet where it belongs, he moved it to a different counter about three feet away and behind a plant.

Because that makes sense.

I was about to look for a new water bottle by the time I found out what had happened.

“You moved my cap?”

“Yeah.”

Ok. “Why?”

“Well, I thought I would start cleaning up the kitchen.”

I looked around me. Indeed, the kitchen was in dire need of some cleaning. There was food stuck to the stovetop, an overflowing trash can, dirty dishes on the counter, used rags tossed in the sink, a dishwasher full of clean dishes waiting to be put away, an empty dog water dish on the floor, and it looked like someone (presumably a child because certainly my husband would not have done this) … someone… had left a mess of coffee accouterments and spilled sugar on the counter.

And he chose to pick up the one thing I was actually using.

You can go ahead and assume that I made absolutely none of the messes aside from putting my bottle cap on the counter.

That means that all of the mess was either from him or possibly the kids. (But in truth it was mainly from him. Which I do not actually have any reason to complain about because he is the cook. And the kitchen cleaner. And the dish washer. So. There is that.)

“So you started by cleaning up after me?” And what I didn’t say was this: Out of all that mess, he thought the most helpful thing he could do was to pick up my cap and move it. (Not put it away, but move it to where I would never find it.)

“Um.”  Pause.

“Did you see me walk in here and start filling my water bottle?”

“Yes.”

“OK, so you saw me take off the cap, set it down, and start filling my bottle. And you thought that I was going to just leave that cap there because, what? --I leave other messes in the kitchen, as you can see all around you?” I did not say it with sarcasm or exasperation but with genuine incredulity and curiosity.

Well…”

And then we both just started laughing. Because, truly, what else can you say?

In any case, I got my water and went back to work.

My marriage can be summed up as this: We are two people standing in the same mess, seeing entirely different emergencies.