After a normal day at the office, a husband and father of three came home exhausted. But when he got out of his car, he couldn’t believe his eyes. It looked as if a bomb had gone off in his family nest; the place was total chaos. The three children were tearing about on the front lawn in their pajamas and hurling mud pies at one another. Next to the garbage bin was a pile of empty juice boxes and hamburger cartons. Their second car’s rear and front doors sat wide open in the garage. The loyal family dog was nowhere to be seen.
The husband carved a path carefully through the chaos towards the front door and entered the house. The living room looked like a battlefield. An expensive designer lamp shade had been repurposed as a frisbee and lay in tatters on the floor. The Persian rug, which normally lay at the entrance, was glued to the wall with some kind of sticky substance. The television was blaring at full volume. There wasn’t a clean spot on the floor. Toys, lollipop wrappers, doll’s clothes, and destroyed coloring books were strewn everywhere. And that was just the beginning!
One look into the kitchen and the catastrophe continued: the sink was full of dirty dishes. The leftovers from breakfast told him what had been on the menu (apparently, soggy cereal). The refrigerator door was open and smeared with wet dog food. And to top it all off, something crunched under his feet: his favorite coffee mug had been smashed into a thousand pieces, the remains mixed into a mountain of sand. And that wasn’t all…
He rushed quickly up the stairs, fighting his way over toys and discarded clothing. “My wife has to be here somewhere,” he thought, somewhat desperately. What if something had happened to her? Something was seriously wrong!
He winced as he stepped in something squishy. The carpet was wet in front of the bathroom. The toilet was clogged with paper and had overflowed. Soggy towels covered the floor. The mirror was decorated with smears of toothpaste and shaving foam.
As panic began to set in, he dashed anxiously into the master bedroom. He was relieved to see his wife reclining calmly in their bed, still in her favorite nightshirt, smiling as she read a book. She looked up, her smile widened and she casually asked, “Hi honey, how was your day?” He couldn’t believe his ears and could barely stammer a question in return, “What… happened… here…?”
She smiled, unperturbed, and said, “You know how when you come home you always ask me what I did all day?” He could only mumble a guilty, “Yes…”
“Well, darling, I didn’t do it today. Did you notice?”
