«This is not nonsense,» Natalie answered calmly. «Since you’re so into saving, I decided that everyone should pay for themselves. I cook, so cooking costs money. You want me to clean? Pay.»
«Have you completely lost your mind?» John blurted out. «These are your direct duties as a wife. What example are you setting for Paula?»
Natalie just smiled. «Oh yes, almost forgot,» she continued from the living room, opening the closet. «The shirts I bought and ironed for you. You won’t wear them anymore. Instead, you have three energy-saving bulbs. And the iron, by the way, I’m taking too. I bought it, so you don’t use it.»
John opened his mouth in surprise. «Is this some kind of joke?» «No, not a joke,» Natalie answered.
«You want everything to be fair? So now I’ll follow your rules and in no way touch your precious budget. See the couch in the living room that we took from your mom? Now you’ll sleep on it.»
John tried to recover from the shock and reached for the kettle to pour himself another cup of coffee. But not finding the appliance in its usual place, the man irritably and puzzledly scanned the kitchen. «And where’s the kettle?»
«There’s no kettle,» Natalie answered in the same cheerful voice. «I bought it after the old one broke. So since you didn’t pay for it, you can’t use it.»
John exploded. «You’re mocking me!» «Not at all,» Natalie said softly.
«I’m just applying your own rules, John. You wanted everything to be fair. Now I’m acting according to your laws. And it’s unpleasant for me to think that you’re saving only on me. So if you want to use the kettle or shirts, buy them yourself.»
John stood silently, unable to respond to his wife’s behavior. Natalie for the first time so decisively and uncompromisingly put him in his place. For the next few days, John tried to live by the new rules that Natalie had set.
Every time he wanted to use the kettle or put on a shirt, he faced harsh reality. Natalie kept her promises. Even a hot dinner stopped being something taken for granted.
For every meal, John had to pay according to the rate his wife set. This irritated him immensely, and at times drove him to rage. One day, John, tired of Natalie’s new rules, decided to resort to cunning.
He remembered that his wife offered him to pay for every household chore and tried to take advantage of it. It seemed to the man that this way he could not only earn but also show that he could do without his wife’s help. So to speak, turn Natalie’s cunning against her.
«Natalie,» he declared one morning, «today I’ll clean the apartment, and you’ll pay me one hundred for it.» Natalie, busy with her affairs, looked at her husband in surprise but said nothing. She knew that John rarely showed initiative in such things, but decided to see where it would lead.
«Go ahead, just take your own bucket, rags, and gloves. And don’t forget about the water. There’s usually a lot of dust accumulating in the corner of the cabinet. Wipe everything well.»
John irritably nodded, then rolled up his sleeves and got to work. When Paula saw her father personally scrubbing the entire floor on his knees, she was very surprised but said nothing.
She had long understood that Mom decided to teach Dad a lesson, and overall agreed with her in this decision. From the beginning, things didn’t go as smoothly for John as he expected. He swept the dust carelessly, missing corners and leaving half the surfaces dirty.
In attempts to wash the floor, he spread more dirt than removed it, and in the bathroom used too much detergent, leaving streaks. He didn’t even bother with cleaning the kitchen, just moved the dirty dishes to the sink. «Well, there,» John said proudly, considering the cleaning done, «the apartment is like new. Where’s my one hundred?»
Natalie walked around the apartment, carefully inspecting her husband’s work. Spots were visible everywhere, dust remained in the corners. The floor shone only from excess puddles, not from cleanliness.
«And you call this cleaning?» she asked, not hiding a smirk. «You didn’t even do half the work.» «And you didn’t wash the floors in my room,» Paula added with a smile.
«But I tried,» John grumbled, feeling growing irritation. «It’s still worth one hundred dollars.» Natalie took out her wallet from her bag, pulled out a ten-dollar bill, and placed it on the table in front of her husband.
«Here, John, for your efforts. Your cleaning isn’t worth more.» John stared at the money in shock. His face even reddened with anger.
«How is that? We agreed on one hundred!» he shouted in rage. Natalie calmly replied: «We agreed that you’d do the entire cleaning qualitatively. By the way, I do such cleaning after every cooking in the kitchen, and also wash the dishes, not just stack the dirty ones in the sink. So it’s worth at most that for such work.»..
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