Like the cat puke I don’t want to clean.

We’ve got two little mongrels (one a lot less little than the other) and sometimes, well, they like to leave us “presents.” 

And sometimes, when I hear that familiar, unmistakable huah-huah-huah sound in the middle of the night, while my husband snores peacefully at my side, I think to myself, “I could just as easily claim I was sleeping too.” Worse yet, in the morning when I pass the fetid pile, there are occasions when I put on my blinders and pretend I didn’t notice. “How long can I get away with this?” I wonder as I slink past the puke.

A better question might be, “How old am I in this moment?“

Consideration. Not my favorite virtue. But one I’m striving to cultivate nonetheless. As my love for my husband and gratitude for my family deepens with maturity, I try to overcome my selfishness and innate laziness, and develop my atrophied moral center a bit more.

My husband is a far more considerate person by nature (or perhaps he just had spectacular parenting): he washes out the coffee pot for me in the morning, he resets the showerhead so it won’t blast me in the face… I could go on and on. His sense of fairness and responsibility are truly something to behold.

I, on the other hand, struggle not to be a grinch. But as I continue writing this blog, and find within myself a growing concern with being a mensch, it’s becoming increasingly important to me to put in the effort. What’s cleaning a little cat puke, after all, if it will save the man I love from being grossed out?

Maybe feline vomit is not the driving issue of our time, but I think these little considerations, like not stealing cabs out from under one another, or tipping our servers, add up to the composition of our moral whole. If we fall down on the small stuff, aren’t we more likely to let the bigger stuff slide down the line?