Honey, why is there cat hair behind the toilet?

Let me preface this post by stating, quite clearly, I am NOT a domestic goddess. It is somewhat a blessing to me that we live in a not-so-visitor friendly apartment. This means that I don't vacuum or mop or sweep on a real regular basis. Only when I just can't bear to look at it anymore. Still, domestic goddess standing aside, I do notice when and how things are getting overwhelmed with the daily grime. My husband, who has been forwarned that I am writing this, always seems a bit befuddled and surprised by where and how the grime piles up.

Ergo, today's question: Honey? Why is there cat hair behind the toilet?

We've been living in this apartment together for about 3 years. I do not reach behind the toilet often, though it is quite easy to see behind it. Because it is a moist and somewhat sticky environment, the dander and fur from our three cats will settle there. It forms this kind of toxic yellow dust bunny that coats practically everything in the space. I concentrate on NOT looking at it because I know at some point I'm going to have to reach behind there and wipe it off. The broom doesn't seem to really get at it. It is a sponge and bleach water job where I have to hug the toilet in order to reach the crevices.

The fact that after about 3 years of avoiding a thorough toxic dust bunny annhiliation my husband asks "Why is there cat hair behind the toilet?" makes me wonder about his belief system.

He is a smart man. He reads non-fiction because fiction doesn't hold any entertainment for him anymore. Watchning science shows comes with a personal narrator, always two steps ahead of the programming with alternate theories and thorough explanations.

So when it takes him 3 years to notice the cat hair behind the toilet, and actually sound concerned about it, I start to form theories of my own about him.

Take the kitchen floor. Yesterday I washed it. Twice. To be fair, he was sleepy when he asked me this. "What inspired you to wash it?"

It was dirty.

But he asked me again about 5 minutes later. I suppose just to be sure of the situation. But his questions, cat hair and floor, make me wonder how he actually sees the objects around us. Perhaps he hasn't actually seen the floor we walk on. He knows there is something keeping up from crashing through to the common room of the Baptist church below us. But perhaps that's why the congregation blesses us with song, Sundays and Wednesdays, twice on each day. They sing to keep the heathen pagans from crashing through to their common room on the first floor of the building! There's not a "floor" per se, rather some cosmic battle of faith where we don't care but the Baptists believe that raising their voices to the aparatment above will somehow keep them from suffering our filth.

And it must work for I have yet to suddenly find myself not actually in my kitchen, but surrounded by surprised church folk who are horrified that their prayers were so blatantly ignored. Next Wednesday I bet they would sing louder.

I don't quite see the floor argument as reason enough to change my faith. Who's to explain why our upstairs neighbors don't come crashing in on us? Is it the Baptists? I don't think their singing is that good or powerful. Even god likes a little feeling in with his worship.

So I washed the dirty floor, baptists be damned, and my husband questioned my actions as if I had somehow altered the direction of the universe with Murphy's Oil Soap.

He didn't question why I cleaned the cat hair from behind the toilet.