We’re having some friends over for dinner tonight and I figure my contribution is already set in getting the charcoal lit a half-hour before the burgers go on the grill. (Propane and gas grills are like sacrilege to me but that’s for another post.)

In my mind, that’s my job, making sure the charcoal’s white and giving an even heat when I’m ready to sizzle that meat.

Meanwhile, hours in advance, my lovely wife is scrubbing counter tops, windexing mirrors and glass table tops, and she asks me, can you please steam clean the tile floors?

I think to myself, “Grrrr . . . I’m busy and I’ve got work to do. I’ve got two hours before I even need to start up the charcoal!” There’s also a bachelor part of me that says, if your shoes aren’t sticking to the floors, then the floors aren’t dirty.

Here I was knee-deep in my work at the computer and feeling floor cleaning went beyond my duties, but I realized I can either gripe about it before finally giving in, or I can just stiffle myself and do it.

Perhaps I’m a slow learner, but after thirteen years of marriage, I’m still working on figuring it out – when it comes to the honey-do’s, you have to just give in and go with it.

Even after I put in the work to make those floors spic and span, I still had this urge to get a final comment in, “Yeah, as if they’re going to notice how much cleaner the floors were from last month when they came over,” but that would have been taking one step forward and two steps back.

I did the chore, I didn’t gripe and we were both happier because of it. After all, “A happy wife makes a happy life.”