Coming home from work after a hard day there are a few things you just do not want to find on your dining room table. A used cotton bud, fresh from the ear of your long-term house guest, has to score very highly in this department, writes Roisin Ingle.
But there it was. An unappetising combination of cotton wool, plastic and earwax resting innocently on the table. You should have thought about this before you agreed to let him stay for five months, it seemed to mock.
I know I am not easy to live with. Everyone who has ever lived with me knows I am not easy to live with. That includes an ex-husband, a family, a mother and a boyfriend who every day has to bite his lip and marvel at how difficult to live with I am. However, even I never left used cotton buds on the table. Half empty flagons of cider maybe. The odd dirty sock. I like to think I have some standards.
It all seemed like such a good idea at the time. Can I stay in your house, when I come over, he asked. Course you can, I said. We planned his visit. He would bring all his Indian spices and cooking instruments and herbal toothpaste and pictures of the holy mountain. We got a room ready for him, a chest of drawers, a table and a chair. I looked forward to us meditating together, cooking sumptuous Indian banquets, enjoying deep conversations deep into the night. Five months? Why not make it 12? He'd bring a little bit of India to Dublin 3 and all I had to give him was a roof over his head.
May Day! May Day! It's not quite working out like that. Forget Cottonbudgate, it was Carpetgate that really made me question my decision to let him stay.
You see, he likes his baths. And the fact that I had asked him to please make sure and let the man in when he came to lay the carpet didn't deter him from his daily ablutions. The boyfriend and I were up at six that morning clearing out the room for the carpet. All my long-term house guest needed to do was let him in.
I rang him at 11 a.m. And at noon. No sign of the carpet man, said he. So I rang the carpet people, who told me their man had been banging on my door for 15 minutes, calling through an open window if you wouldn't be minding. But answer came there none. The houseguest was in the bath with the radio blaring. The carpet men moved on to another house. Two weeks later I'm still getting over it.
There have been a million other incidents that may sound insignificant to you but have rocked my otherwise steady domestic life. These include: him not turning off the hot water switch after he has a shower. Him dumping all his stuff (anything from Zen Cards to incense) on the table instead of putting them away. Him putting coffee grounds down the plughole and questioning me about it when I ask him not to. Him using the tumble dryer without asking. Him breathing. Himmmmm.
I'm beginning to feel like the Gestapo in my own home. Snooping around for signs that he has been breaking the rules. Ve haf vays of making you put ze tea bags in ze bin instead of ze sink. That kind of thing.
Then there are the lectures. Since his arrival, our domestic habits have come under scrutiny. He is, after all, a doctor and knows a thing or three about health. He won't use our cheap saucepans, for example, because he says the aluminium on them will give him Alzheimer's. He thinks we are mad using regular toothpaste because, hellooo, fluoride is mega-toxic. Friends are jealous because my houseguest is also a yoga teacher who happens to be extremely generous with his time, but with all the inner turmoil I'm experiencing I just can't bring myself to get on the mat.
Worst of all, if I'm really honest I don't think any of this is actually his fault except perhaps the bit about the carpet and the used cotton bud. His stay has turned me into a bit of a monster, and I'm constantly on high alert for his next dodgy move.
It has got to the stage where if he just sat meekly in his room, listening to gentle water music and praying for world peace I'd be up there ranting at him like a woman possessed.
There have been chinks of light in this dark tale. The other night I had a dinner party, during which he played the guitar and sang and read his Zen cards for the guests. It was a joyful night that reminded me why I wanted him in my house in the first place. The next day I got home from work, cleared his stuff from the table, turned off the shower switch and fished out a teabag from the sink. He ain't heavy, he's my brother. I just have to keep telling myself that.