She flushes the toilet after she pees just to spite me.  She holds the handle down extra long before letting go and stands over the bowl, waiting there, making sure it’s flushed thoroughly and completely and new water has come up and the toilet bowl is all full with clean fresh water before she turns and exits the commode.

Then she looks right at me as I’m looking right at her giving her the Stink-Eye, as if to say “fuck yeah I just peed – and only peed – fuck yeah I just pulled the lever; fuck yeah I just flushed three more gallons of your precious water down – without brown – and that’s the way it is and the way it’s gonna be when I pee and the way it’s gonna stay for the rest of your days and nights and you can’t do a damn thing about it, you won’t do a damn thing about it, and you’ll learn to like it. See?”

She said all that with just that one look.

Well, if she thinks I’m staying silent, she’s got another thing coming, that’s all I’m saying. If she thinks I’ll ignore it, she’ll need to think again. If she thinks I’m gonna let anyone, even my own love-o-my-life, pull a single-pee-flush while we’re suffering through a longstanding, global-warming-related, Exxon -&-Co-induced, someone-else-will-take-care-of-it drought, well then she’d better read the fine print, get her toothbrush and jammies, fish her lawyer’s number outta that cute little red Prada snap-purse of hers cuz I’m dropping the dime. I’m singing. I’m chirping. Like a canary in a coalmine.

I’ve warned her before. I tried being nice about it before, funny about it before, firm about it. Before. That was before. When we were all lovey-dovey, when we were dreaming out loud together and wishing upon stars together and pledging all sorts of things, together. But then she got tired with it, lazy with it, belligerent even. So now I’m done. Now I’m gonna Facebook it, Instagram it, Snapchat it, Tweet it, Vine it, Red-it, Post it, Pin it, Pop It, YouTube it – from the tallest mountaintops, across the widest oceans, inside the deepest valleys: Now hear this! I’m living with an Earth-izen who isn’t mellow with yellow; who doesn’t wait for brown to flush it down!  That should teach her. Shouldn’t it?

We had an agreement. An arrangement. An understanding. It was supposed to be me and her against the world.  Our love was supposed to conquer things.  Break shackles. Open eyes.  Our love would lift us up and give us a bird’s eye view so we’d see fully and clearly and live good clean lives. We would right wrongs and find answers to the world’s problems. If it was yellow we’d be mellow. If it was brown we’d flush it down. We had a deal!

But after the honeymoon, after we moved in together, after the daily grind kept us both on our toes and in the sack just long enough to make boy after boy after boy, she got a little fed up with all the piss.

“Wipe off those rims!” she’d yell.

“Put the goddam seat down!” she’d yell.

“There is too much penis in this damn house!” she’d yell.

I guess me and the boys, we pissed the mellow right out of her.

And so here we stand, face to face at the end of our long day, staring into each other’s red, drooping eyes, the sore bare soles of our tired feet cooling on the bathroom tile, our tattered toothbrushes foaming spearmint, her plum scented eye cream waiting to be smeared beneath her sagging lids and bags, my purple inhaler waiting to be sprayed and sucked. Here we stand, deciding whether to go to war, again.

Because she flushed.

She doesn’t look like she’s backing down. And there’s no way to unflush waht she did. But I have to make sure she’s not setting precedent. A marriage is like a government, with lots of heated debate and careful deliberation and bilateral summits and talks before anything is signed into law. It’s a slow process that yields the best results. She can’t just undo all that with a single flush! Letting that flush go unchallenged would unleash a whoosh of chaos, a whirl of anarchy. Where would such a torrent end?

“Fine,” I say as I pick my toothbrush back up. “We’re gonna let it slide this time.” I give her another full second of Stink-Eye before pulling it back in. I go back to brushing, faucet off, pretending to be staring in the mirror but fully side-glaring her in the mirror to make sure she knows I’m still on her. She turns on her faucet, starts her brushing.

“Whatever,” she says. Spits. Rinses. Repeats.

Repeats?