When I was a kid I simply loved the science fair. I loved picking an experiment, making a hypothesis, and coming to a conclusion. It fascinated me and I had a lot of fun doing it.
So you can imagine my intrigue when I felt presented with an opportunity to revive my experimental self in my home setting. I knew right away I was up for the challenge and began what would be a week long experiment documenting the difference between a man and a woman as evidenced through interactions with my spouse based on a cheese puff. And so began The Cheese Puff Experiment. Enjoy.
It all started on a Monday. That’s the one day of the week that my husband and I are both off from work. As usual we had enjoyed a leisurely day simply being together. Somewhere around the evening hours of this particular day I heard my spouse call out from the kitchen, “Dang! I just stepped on the baby’s cheese puff in my bare socks!”
We both chuckled about the incident for stepping on discarded food is common place where young children are involved. And then I thought nothing more of it.
Later that night after the kids were asleep I made my way into the kitchen for a late night snack. And that was when I saw it. It wasn’t in a corner or somewhere similar where it could have been overlooked. To me it appeared to be almost front and center on my kitchen floor. A crushed cheese puff.
I called out to my spouse, “Sweetie, you forgot to pick up that cheese puff you crushed.”
This was his chance. He could have done so many different things at this point. The easiest and most obvious to me the wife would be to say, “Yes dear. I’m sorry.”
Such an answer would have likely caused me to grab the dustpan and scoop up the crushed snack. But he chose a different option. At that moment in response to my observation of his forgotten mess he replied, “No I didn’t.” And then he sealed the deal with a slight chuckle under his breath.
And thus began my decision to not pick up the discarded cheese puff. A plan began to formulate in my mind, a decision to leave it there and see just how long it would remain on the floor if left up to my spouse.
How long would he leave it there?
Day 1: You know what? I’m not even sure he noticed it that first day. It was definitely on my mind. It was a huge, orange snack marring my kitchen floor for goodness sake!
My spouse on the other hand got ready for work as usual with no notice or regard for the calamity at his feet. I was surprised, but I wasn’t. You know what I mean? I’m not even sure it was blatant ignoring as much as it was just oblivion.
After all we’re talking about a man who occasionally throws dirty clothes beside the hamper rather than depositing them inside. Close enough, right?
I was already beginning to notice differences. Whereas an unmade bed caused me to cringe, my husband was not phased by the chaos on the kitchen floor. I began to wonder if he and the children would be overrun by bugs or cascading dust bunnies if not for my methodical cleaning frenzies.
I realized I would need to take further action to level the playing field. I would need to pad the experiment a bit for all fairness since he was obviously blind to those gigantic crumbs. So I left a note.
If you can’t read the note it says “Crushed Cheeto from sock-o-stick-to-it era.”
I was being a little creative, a tad bit funny, and perhaps a hair on the nagging side. But I felt it was just. Since I was mostly laughing surely I wasn’t being a complete nag. After all, I had to prove my point.
That morning I saw my husband look down at the note, but he said nothing. Touché. He was going to be a difficult adversary I saw. But I also discovered that while men may be incredibly stubborn, they are not stupid. They may want to prove their point as much as a woman, but they also know where their bread is buttered.
My spouse ignored the cheese puff. He left it laying there, crushed to dust on my kitchen floor that morning, but he also took extra time to tidy up. I watched, drinking my coffee, while he made sure to pick up his dirty socks and discarded pajama pants and place them in the hamper. He even straightened up his mess in the living room from the night before. Then he placed a lovely kiss on my lips and left for work. Smart man indeed.
On the third day I changed out the accompanying note. I was beginning to feel a tad foolish and wanted to keep it light-hearted, so I attached another funny note. I wanted him to know I wasn’t mad really, but I still wanted him to pick it up. I needed him to pick it up. I am completely aware that I’m neurotic.
On this day I watched again from my coffee perch and saw him take note of the pitiful cheese puff. On this day he commented, “Are you still making notes for that cheese puff the baby dropped on the floor?”
Sigh. Even while one part of me felt like he was placing undue blame of the puff on the baby the other part of me felt silly for continuing the charade. One part of me felt stupid and stubborn. That part told me to just sweep it up already. The other part of me wondered why he couldn’t just do it? That part won that day. And so the cheese puff remained.
By the fourth day I was about to lose my mind about that little cheese ball. I had swept and mopped my entire floor excluding that section and it was one of the harder things I’ve done in a while. I may be exaggerating a little, but not by much. It was making me crazy not thoroughly cleaning my floor. On the other hand I’m certain my husband wasn’t bothered in the least by the scant scattering of crumbs making their way under the recesses of the table.
Also the pile had changed in appearance, somehow had gotten smaller, and I had a pretty good idea as to how. I knew my husband hadn’t cleaned up the largest piece. I was sure my toddler had eaten it. I was surprised it had taken her this long.
I came so close that day to just sweeping it up and being done with it. But I didn’t. It remained.
By the fifth day my husband had forgotten about the cheese puff completely and I was growing weak in my continued attempts to ignore it. When my husband walked past it I’m sure he didn’t blink an eye. When I walked past the mess screamed to me, “Enough woman!
I was ready to withdraw the challenge, and that day I got an easy out. My three year old snuck into the banana bread and devoured it. The aftermath was a plethora of crumbs under the entire table and stretching across the kitchen area. There was no way to confine the spill yet spare the cheese puff remnants. So I happily bid it ado, and into the dust pan it surrendered.
So who had been able to ignore it the longest and what did that tell me about how different we were?
I guess you could say I surrendered first, but you could also say he left the game long before that, if he had even been engaged at all. It was never a big deal to him, not like it was to me.
Things that mattered to me, unimportant little things, might not rank up there much with my spouse. Haven’t we always known that about men and women though? He was working and supporting his family while I was taping notes to the floor. He probably should have swept it up that first day. So maybe we both needed to give a little grace to the other.
One thing you could conclude is that we both knew how to persevere. Call it stubborn, but I prefer determination, and I’ll bet he would as well. Our cumulative dedication that week to passing by a piece of crunched up food was impressive. But I think it was way harder for me!
He has some faults. So do I! We both fall short of perfection separately, but together things seem to just work. We have weaknesses and we have strengths. Somehow it meshes pretty well. Somehow the messes always get taken care of by one or the other. It just seems the crumbled food ones are more up my alley.
The differences in character, the commitment to a task (albeit menial), were perfect examples of what made us work as a couple. I’d venture to say they’re what keeps things interesting.
It wasn’t so much the differences in a man and women that mattered, but how they could make those work together that was important.
Who knew a crushed cheese puff could reveal so much. Will I do it again though? No freaking way. I know my limits.