The Chore Chart

Harald found the first note on a Monday morning. It was taped to the chore chart on the fridge. It was written in angry green ink: "BATHROOM: HAS ANYONE CLEANED IT IN WEEKS? SOME OF US LIVE HERE TOO." Underneath, someone had drawn a small, sad sponge. He knew the handwriting. It was Sheila's.

He read it twice. Then he looked at the chart. His name stood next to "Bathroom" every Tuesday and Friday. The little boxes beside it were completely empty. He decided that the note was unfair. He wrote a short reply under it: "I'm doing my share!"

The next morning, there was a second note. "Then why is the chart empty?" it asked. On Wednesday, there was a third one: "Four weeks, Harald. Four." By Thursday, the sponge had a tiny speech bubble that said, "Please."

Harald did not know what to do. He was not a person who usually argued. He worked at a bakery supplier's office, and he left the apartment before seven every morning. In the evenings, he was too tired to explain anything, so he just left more short notes.

On Friday night, Sheila was waiting for him in the kitchen with her arms crossed. The chart lay on the table between them.

"I have been very patient," she said. "But you cannot write that you are doing your share when you are clearly not."

"But I am," Harald said. "I clean it every Tuesday and Friday."

"I would have seen you."

"You wouldn't. I do it at six in the morning, before work, while you are asleep."

Sheila stared at him. "You get up at six to scrub a bathroom?"

"It is the only time I have. At night, I am too tired. And I am quiet, I promise. I even use the sink very softly."

"Then why are the boxes empty?"

Harald looked at the chart, and then he started to laugh. "Because the pen lives in your room," he said. "It has lived there for a month. I did not want to wake you up."

For a second, Sheila did not move. Then her face changed, and she began to laugh too. She laughed so hard that she had to hold on to the table. "I thought the bathroom was clean because we hardly use it," she said. "I have been angry at a clean bathroom for four weeks."

"And I have been writing back to a sponge," Harald said.

Sheila wiped her eyes. She took the green pen from her pocket and bent over the chart. Then she ticked six boxes in a row.