My parents are of a generation in which it was prudent to clean everything to within an inch of operating room sterile every day in order to avert crippling embarrassment in the event that Jesus were to swing by in the late afternoon and discover that He was unable to eat a plate of spaghetti off their floor, behind the toilet, should He so choose.
In the course of our early courtship, as
my husband and I discussed previous relationships, communicable diseases, and family quirks, I felt it was necessary to explain to him that my parents have certain OCD compulsions that could possibly be inherited.
As an example, I mentioned the practice of using a
squeegee to wipe down the bathroom tile after every shower. It is believed in most OCD circles that this prevents the build-up of harmful diseagermaids, the enemy of clean thinking people everywhere. This may seem like a relatively harmless behavior, a benign battle in the cleaning war. But my parents were relentless about checking the shower to make sure that it was wiped down completely after every shower. And everyone was responsible for his or her own shower squeegeeing, even if one were to take a shower immediately after another.
This is best exemplified by the time that my Dad attempted to take a shower about five minutes after me, but was forced to stop, shut the water off, and roam the house in his towel looking for me.
"Why didn't you wipe down the shower? How many times do we need to ask you to do something? Whenwillyoustartlisteningtous??" he rambled.
"Dad, I knew you were going to take a shower right after me. You were
waiting for the bathroom. I didn't see the point in wiping it down when you were just going to be in there in a couple minutes, getting it wet again," I reasoned, foolishly.
"You are responsible for your own shower. I am not going to wipe down your water!" he said, with an amazing straight face.
I wanted to ask how he was able to differentiate between his water drops and my water drops, but it's not beyond the realm of possibility that he actually did know the difference and would be more than eager to show me. This is what parenting does to people. He had reached the point where almost nothing was within his control anymore, but he would fight for all that was still within his domain with the fierceness of 10,000 rabid, starving, Republican, NRA-card-holding wolverines.
As a result of this childhood trauma and since the bathroom has been newly remodeled, it has become standard practice between my husband and I to race each other to the shower so that the loser has to wipe down the water of the other person.
Yesterday, I won. But he was standing outside the new clear curtain with his hangdog look, begging pitifully with his eyes to come in out of the cold. So I told him that he could come in the shower as well. However, he proceeded to hog the water and was in and out before I could finish washing the soap off. This was a clear violation of the water rule. I had made it to the shower first and the water was his responsibility, as the secondary showeree. I told him as much.
"I'm not wiping down your water!" I yelped.
"Yes you are are," he said. "I can't help it if you take forever to shower. That water is your responsibility."
Man, that guy is cold-hearted.
Just know that if you have the opportunity, make sure all of this kind of stuff is clearly noted in your wedding vows so that you don't have to explain to the police someday that you buried the body in the backyard because he made you wipe down the water. To them, it doesn't sound like self-defense.
(Steven Tyler looks more and more like an aging socialite with a botox addiction, but that's hardly surprising. I'd be more horrified if he didn't look like he was wearing women's clothing from the Macy's junior department.)
