Chapter One: Playing House (~jinghan)

The key turns in the lock with the satisfying sound of unseen mechanics. I’m balancing a loaf of bread at my hip, my backpack hanging off one tilted shoulder, my coat over my arm and juggling my wallet with my key attached in my remaining hand. (And there’s possibly some loose change precariously tucked into my fist.) I push the door handle down with my elbow and the door forward with my shin and fall into my apartment. Its not really my momentum but the momentum of the bread that dictates where I go. Phew! It makes it to the table before tumbling out of my arms. My backpack is dumped at the foot of the table, my coat on the floor, change and wallet scattered next to the bread. On some days this is when I make a dash for the loo.

I remember that last term I would come home stressed and tired and after dark on more days than not during the week. But today I take a few moments to admire the late afternoon sun streaming through the back window filling the lounge room that is empty except for my fish tank and my yet unfolded laundry on a feeble rack. (I think it’s been there a week now.) I have come to love that empty. Some days I take a book and sit on the carpet and commune with a world where nothing material needs to exist.

Somedays, it’s not until late in the evening that my housemate comes home. Somedays, she give me a fright by coming out from the bedroom to say “hi” when I thought the house was empty. (It is only fair, I frighten her in exactly the same manner when she comes home later than me.) Last term, dinner was always a frantic half-hour race: cut the vegies, heat the oil, stir fry, serve, eat in a gulp, wash up with ferocity, disappear to study hall. Not because I needed the time that desperately but because I was afraid that if I gave too much of an impression that I wanted to hear about my housemate’s day my chop-and-serve ferocity mixed with stress and tiredness would turn into unintended hostile apathy. Perhaps it did anyway, but she didn’t seem to notice and continued to chatter about her day to me every day despite my wordlessly busying around the kitchen with my head down — except to occasionally ask her to move so that I could access a cupboard.

It is only now that I think to myself: what kind soul knew that I would need such a housemate that would not take to heart my less than engaging demeanour on stressful days? Whoever it was, thankyou.

I remember in the first couple of months, everything about my housemate bothered me. She would let food go off in the fridge, she would leave her dishes in the sink even when she wasn’t in a hurry to do anything afterwards, I sometimes washed her dishes but she never washed mine. (In fact, I often found more dishes added to the pile when I next checked!) Sometimes I would do all the housework I saw necessary in the hope that this would arouse her into feeling like she needed to do an equal share too – it never worked and just left me with the bitter feeling of guilt mixed with resentment. Why wasn’t she more like me??

Well, the answer is: because some kind soul knew that I would need a somewhat forgetful and unmindful housemate that would not be frazzled by my control-freak and easily-stressed attitudes.

It seems that nothing has changed now: she still isn’t mindful of who and when the dishes are done, she is more forgetful about food she bought earlier in the week than ever before, she doesn’t notice when I clean the toilet and the bathroom sinks. However, in it’s own way, everything has changed. I’ve stopped minding that I do all the dishes. In fact, I do it with joy and the gratitude. It serves as a reminder of all the countless things that my parents must have done for me without me ever noticing because I didn’t know what it was like to be without. Nowadays, I stop to do the dishes even when I have homework due the next day that I haven’t started yet, and I think of the fact that my parents cooked for us and did the housework regardless of how long or stressful their work day had just been. My lack of notice or gratitude was in no way deserving of their hard work for me. The only possible to way to repay such underserved love and care would be to let them know that I understand what has been done for me.  I would have spent a life time in ignorant debt if my previous attitude had been allowed its way and I had gotten notice and repayment for every piece of work that I do in my house.

Nowadays, I clean the bathroom because I enjoy making things clean. (I know! I’m crazy!) And I am thankful that my housemate does not notice or comment on it. Someone who doesn’t care about a few messes here and there but feels as if I am making them constantly feel bad about it would certainly have started treating me with resentment and hostility by now.

***

It’s Saturday, and me and my housemate have both just finished a week of mid-term exams. I am already cleaning the kitchen by the time by housemate gets out of bed. She does her laundry and vacuums the lounge, hallways and her bedroom. Meanwhile I clean the fridge, wipe all the surfaces, take out the trash, sort the recycling, rinse out the bins, procrastinate about my laundry (my least liked chore), wipe the sinks and vacuum my room and kitchen. The house is filled with air and light, I have no homework so I can fret about those crumbs in the bottom of the fridge as much as I like. And I couldn’t be happier.

“Hey, did you want to check whether it’s time to add softener to your laundry?” my housemate asks.

“Uh… I usually don’t add it because I never check in time… Also…. I don’t have any softener…. The less I have to do about my laundry the better?”

“Oh. I’ll check for you.”

A few minutes later I see her past balancing a cap full of softener as she heads towards the laundry. It makes me smile. She returns after a while still with the cap of softener. “I was wondering why I kept missing it, the ‘add softener’ indicator never turns on during the cycle. It just goes straight from the wash cycle to done.” We both laugh heartily about it.

“Hey, I feel like chicken broth. Do you want to help me make some?” she asks me out of the blue, while I still have my head in the fridge. “If you don’t have other things you need to do, that is,” she quickly adds, “I was thinking about making Enchiladas with the chicken afterwards.”

I look up in surprise. My housemate never cooks and barely knows how to. “Do you know what to do?”

“Mostly… I can always call my mum.”

“Why not, I don’t have any studying to do. Lets do it!”

Half an hour later we are at the sink hacking at a whole raw chicken while my housemate calls her mother and her grandmother and her sister for help.

“Do you think I should cut this bit off?”

“I don’t know!!”

“Uh… lets do it just in case…”

“Wow this is so messy!”

“Oh hey, do you think this is part of the chicken’s brain?”

“Arg. I don’t want to know! Just get rid of it. ”

“What is your grandmother saying?”

“She says you have to remove the… I can’t remember the word. It’s on the outside of the chicken…”

“Skin?”

“Feathers.”

We both laugh at the thought of her grandmother thinking we have actually slaughtered our own chicken.

Much fun, mess and hopeful pot-watching later, we serve up the broth.

“This is actually good!” my housemate does not hide her surprise. She does a little dance. ” Ha! I can cook! Now my family cannot tease me about never cooking. And it’s actually good!” We spend the afternoon chilling out in the kitchen together listening to mexican music my housemate is playing from her computer. Occasionally she cajoles me into trying to imitate the dancers in a film clip with her. And we laugh very loudly at how silly it feels.

It makes me remember, that the biggest fear I had before I met my housemate would be that she would be one of those “too cool for you” girls who would give me a judgemental look if I even contemplated dancing in the kitchen.

And I feel like the luckiest person in the world.