How squirrels stay married

A fable about invisible labour, domestic fairness, and the silence that keeps the peace.

Photo by Andrew Maristch III on Unsplash

Disclaimer: To avoid any accusations of mining my life for content, I am going to share a completely fictionalised account of an event that definitely did not happen this week, involving someone I am not married to.

Lars and Lotte were a squirrel couple who lived in a modern nest in the trees of a park that was popular with promoters who liked to host day-long music festivals. They foraged for nuts, occasionally ate from local bins, and generally enjoyed an agreeable life.

One lunchtime, Lotte decided she was fed up with nuts. Instead, she grilled mozzarella and sliced cheddar on a piece of toasted sourdough so that her tomato soup would not feel quite so lonely. Rather than use the oven, she followed the advice of her baby squirrel, who suggested popping it in the air fryer for two minutes.

When she opened the air fryer drawer after the allotted time, Lotte was surprised to find the toast on one side and a molten pile of cheese on the other. The velocity of the air inside the machine, it seemed, was strong enough to blast the toppings clean off. She used a small squirrel spatula to spread the cheese back onto the toast and ate her lunch. Afterwards, she washed the drawer and left it to dry on the kitchen counter.

Lars came home from work, hangry from a self-imposed fasting regime. He picked up the air fryer drawer and bellowed, “Who washed this? What is this shit on here?”

From the sofa in the nest, snuggled under a warm fleece blanket where she was reading a tiny book, Lotte replied, “Me. What’s the issue?”

“Well, it’s not clean,” he snapped. “Are you going to clean it properly?”

“It’s a bit of cheese. If anything, just give it a wipe.”

“And smear it? For fuck’s sake.”

Lotte pointed out that she had washed it with warm, soapy water and that it was perfectly fine to put a pre-packaged container holding a low-calorie meal inside. Lars, however, was already huffing and puffing, running the tap.

“How is this fair?” he continued. “Why should I have to do this?”

Lotte ran her tongue over her sharp squirrel teeth and briefly considered suggesting that he use the other air fryer drawer, which was perfectly clean. The appliance had two.

She also reflected that earlier that very day before starting work (eight-hours, remotely_, for the nut factory), she had emptied the kitty litter, fed the cat, emptied the dishwasher, put on the laundry, wiped down the dining table, rinsed out the espresso machine tray, emptied the food bin caddy, put out the recycling, and bagged the contents of three rubbish bins. Unusually, she had not run the Hoover over the floor, which was normally a daily occurrence. One that Lars hadn’t done in recent memory, if ever. The squirrels and their cat produced a great deal of fur debris.

But she said nothing. She tucked her luxurious tail under the blanket and returned to her book; as she did so, she thought to herself, ‘Did we stay married because neither of us could remember where we buried the other options?’ Her choice of nut had so far seen them through 26 winters. ‘Really, what’s one more?’