I’m beginning to realize I’m not the messy one in this house. I may have been labeled as such, and believe you me, I can make a mess alright, but I keep it confined to my room. I’ve long known that I’ve been the scapegoat for messiness here, but I accepted it as a fact of life and moved on. However, as I clean (which is always in secret when no one else is around) the common areas, funnily enough, none of the stray dishes, papers or left over food is mine. I don’t know if it’s any one person in particular’s but I have a sneaking suspicion it is a little bit of everyone. So if everyone is messy, how did I become crowned Queen o’ Mess?

Living together is hard. Living together with three other people in a small space is very hard. Add in the fact that you did not choose to live with these people, they were thrown at you at random, and that you also work together, and you’ve got one difficult situation. It’s hard to share the bathroom, the washing machine, and let’s not even get into the rows over the phone and the computer. Yet, somehow, cleaning is always the softest spot.

There is an adage in communication studies that says every interaction has two dimensions; content and relationship. Content is what is actually being said, or the actual problem being discussed. Relationship is what it really represents. For example, often when someone is thought of as ‘messy’ they are also thought of as ‘irresponsible’ or ‘unreliable’. The content is the mess, the relationship is the unreliability, or more accurately, they are personally disrespecting you by not cleaning their share, thus making your workload more. See the big difference? Suddenly, that pile of dirty dishes feels like a knife in your back. (no pun intended)

So why do I allow myself to be the scapegoat of mess? A simple (and fair) question with a not so simple answer. I guess the short answer is; it’s easy. I may not be the messy one around here, but I’m not the cleanest either, and I believe in the glass houses proverb. And while I may not be the messiest one about, I still have a lot to learn about the politics of cleaning. In the meantime, though, I’ll quietly do my bit while you are at the pub or shopping at the Gap. Remember the teacups you have let gather around the computer for the past week? Of course you don’t, which is why you won’t notice when I clean them away. Or how about your plates from dinner last night that you left sitting in the living room? Nope, doesn’t ring a bell, which is why you have no idea that I cleaned up after all three of you. That cake pan from when two of you baked last week; yeah that must have slipped your mind as well, because you’ll have no idea the time I spent scrubbing it while you were away.

So, I’ll quietly do my share, keep cleaning, but not too much so that you’ll notice, but just enough to keep it tidy. And I’ll keep being your scapegoat, too. Anything I can do to make this difficult living situation just that bit easier. Yep, so don’t mind if I lose my temper when you want to use the computer and I’ve only just sat down. It’s not really about the computer, after all…