Adult onset OCD is rarely diagnosed. Some say that’s due to a lack of funding behind the research. Others say it’s “not a real thing.”
You show me a thirty-year-old man folding the edges of his toilet paper rolls into triangles, and I’ll show you a man who needs medical help. Or a man who is about to become a father.
Stereotypes would tell you that the pregnant one generally leads the nesting efforts. Our household is different. But before you consider me a hero of progressive gender roles (something I’m constantly being cast as), I should point out that it’s hard to say if ownership over nesting has fallen to me by choice.
Some might say I get to have the privilege of cleaning up and generally keeping the house in order. Some would say it’s my way of “adding value” because I’m not “creating and sustaining new human life using only my body.” The source of those voices is neither her nor there.
The point is I’ve formed quite a bond with our vacuum cleaner. And our washer and dryer, our broom, our trash bin, the cupboard with all the paper towels and cleaning sprays, and of course, the dishwasher.
These are my friends now. They’re the ones I can talk to—the ones I can trust to not share any grievances I have against the pregnant one (because there are none!).
The dishwasher and I have grown close in particular. Mainly because he and I agree that there’s a right and a wrong way to load dishes. He is someone I respect, someone I look up to.
The way he always seems to be able to do a little more. The way he requires only a small cleaning pod before he asks to do his job in silence. The way he blends in with the counter space so as not to disturb our modern aesthetic while he works himself into a steamy sweat night after night. He’s the faithful servant I wish I could be.
Which is why he’s the first person to hear my complains about how the crib won’t build itself.
“Give it one more try,” he tells me. “Use the gentle cycle this time.”
And he’s right.
The furniture begins to yield the moment I set aside the sledgehammer. But when I go to give my thanks to the dishwasher, the pregnant one stops me.
“Did you just…caress the dishwasher?”
“What? No. I was just running my hands along the cabinets.”
“You touched it very gently.”
“That doesn’t mean it was a caress.”
She squints her eyes at me and walks away. I don’t need to be understood. I just need to be allowed to clean. This is what it takes to turn a house into a home and a home into a sanctuary, I tell myself.
The cleaning tools understand this completely. It’s the gospel they’ve been preaching all along.
Thanks for reading this far.
- jd
And also…
I’ve spent this week in a hotel room that has a couch. I haven’t once sat on the couch. Maybe I should?
My other hotel thought is that I struggle to imagine myself traveling with an object so valuable that it would require a safe. I generally assume it’s difficult to break into a hotel room, so if someone makes it that far and wants to steal my running shoes (genuinely the most expensive item in my room), go for it, I guess. Instead of getting robbed, it’s more likely I would lock something in the safe and forget the code.
Moscatos (and dessert wines in general) are underrated.
I have a strange sense of duty about teaching the boy how to swim. He should absolutely take swim lessons, but I feel like this one is on me. I don’t know why.
The Lyonnaise Potatoes at Musso and Frank in Los Angeles is the best side dish I’ve ever eaten.
