The Mathematical Division of Household Blame

My wife and I have different duties at home which are pretty evenly split. However, this isn't the case when it comes to blame. For you see, I generally get about 90% of the blame for when there are food mishaps.

Why, I remember it like it was yesterday... (Cue the fuzzy blurred out swirly image for a flashback.) Wait a minute...it was yesterday!

"Your Chinese food leaked juice all over the refrigerator," hollered my wife from the kitchen.

"But...it was for your benefit," I explained.

Silence. Crickets. Even more crickets.

Finally, "How in the hell was that for my benefit."

I finally got off the loveseat to go plead my case in the same room with her. "When you went to bed, you forgot to put your leftover Chinese food in the refrigerator. So I had to move mine to make way for yours. Apparently, when I moved mine (to make way for yours, I'd like to reiterate), it of necessity became canted, thus dribbling out the juice. For your benefit."

"Oh, no," she said, "you're not putting that on me!"

"But it was for your benefit," I said, standing my ground. "So you should be the one to clean it."

"That's ridiculous. Okay...what if I was making cookies for you and I had a terrible flour accident. Would you clean it up?"

"No," I said. 

"'No?' Why? It's the same thing!"

"Because you would eat the cookies, too. Your baking would benefit us both." I mean, this is clear, clean logic, right? Just follow the logic. Perfect sense.

Then she hit me with, "Okay, fine. What if I was making you coconut cookies and flour exploded everywhere?" Aha, I thought. Now she's using the same, strong logic right back at me, for she has an aversion toward coconut and won't touch it.

"That's different," I said. "Coconut cookies would be to my benefit, therefore rendering me the responsible party to clean up the flour explosion."

"Yeah, right. Like you'd clean it up."

I said, "I would! Go make coconut cookies and throw flour everywhere and watch me clean it!" Gotcha, I thought. I didn't think her hatred for coconut would even allow her to bake such cookies.

"Yeah, I'm not going to do that," she said.

Well, even though I laid out a flawless, logical defense in "Kitchen Court," I still lost the case and ended up cleaning the spilled Chinese sauce. (At least the sauce that I saw without moving items, which resulted in yet another Kitchen Court later.)

I went back to the love-seat, while she was still banging away in the kitchen. Soon enough, she's in the refrigerator and hollering about all the food that's gone to waste.

"Do you hear me?" she shouted. "You've got to quit letting food go to waste!"

"How is this my fault? You eat the food, too."

"Okay, I'd say it's about 85% your fault and 15% mine. We share the burden of responsibility."

"Wait a minute, hold on a second! That's not sharing. That's still blaming me for the majority! Where'd you come up with that over-inflated equation? Trump's accountants?"

I need a specialized slide rule or something to dole out arbitrary percentages of blame to my wife the next time we enter Kitchen Court. Best to be prepared.

Speaking of horror stories, you'll find a lot of 'em in my collection of creepy tales, Twisted Tales From Tornado Alley. Check it out!