On Your Mark

In our apartment, if you're not home first, you're last.

Not that we're racing or anything.

Tiffany and I have an unspoken deal that whoever gets home first starts dinner. That's exactly what I did one recent night when I beat her home. I was happily preparing taco salad and simultaneously packing my lunch when Tiffany burst through the door.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Making dinner and lunch," I said.

"Ohhhh! I want to make lunch too, but I don't want you to have to make it for me. Stop making lunch!"

"It's no big deal," I said, continuing to make lunch.

"No, stop!" she yelled from the bathroom. "I hate being second."

"At what?"

"At getting home! You're already in your comfy clothes and making dinner and lunch and I haven't done anything."

I laughed and joined her in the bathroom where she was washing her hands.

"It's okay..." I began, just as she shut the door on my face so she could beat me back to the kitchen.

"Let me catch up!" she shrieked.

I smiled at the bathroom door, thinking about our other unspoken deal: that whoever mostly cooks dinner mostly gets out of the dishes.