When I first enter my house, I try to just bask in my success at getting through the door. It isn't easy figuring out which key is the right one since the front porch light isn't on and it's very dark. I say hello to the dogs who just a minute ago were ready to tear the flesh from my bones--until they realized it was me. With practiced skill, I simultaneously defend my crotch and my rear end from their three cold noses as well as my face from slobbery licks as I remove my shoes.

I look away from all the shoes, the paw prints, the half-eaten lunches, open backpacks with contents spilling out in front of me. Someone has thoughtfully laid down a towel to catch the dogs' muddy footprints since it's raining out. Unfortunately, they obviously doesn't know where the stack of dog towels are because the one they used is one of the expensive Macy's ones from the upstairs bathroom.

I squash the old familiar longing that wells up in me to have a foyer or a mud room. I pine for some kind of transition into the living room other than just opening the door and having the mess (along with the dogs) greet me or a potential future guest, or God forbid, another parent dropping off their child for a playdate.

I continue to the family room where my twin nine year old daughters are on the old couch watching Nickelodeon and my husband is on eBay. He's hunched in front of the child-size Pottery Barn computer hutch his mother bought us two years ago. A defect in the white paint made the knots in the wood visible--hence its cheap price at a garage sale. I have always meant to re-paint it.

"Hello," I say.

No answer.

"I wrecked the car," I say to my husband to see if he's listening.
He reluctantly tears his eyes away from the computer screen. "Huh?"

"Fine, how was yours?" I reply.

"Good," he said, his eyes sliding back to the computer screen to see if anyone has outbid him on the antique Swedish postcard collection.

"OK, girls. How long have you been watching TV?" I ask. I hate to be the bad guy, always making them turn it off, but I hate the TV being on even more than I hate being the bad guy.

"Awwwww, Mom, High School Musical just started! I haven't seen this in forever!" wails Lily.

Hanna doesn't say anything. She waits to see what I will do.

High School Musical could well be the worst movie ever made. I know that since I have already seen it five times. Lily has seen it at least fifteen times.

"This is on the DVR. You can watch it later," I say. We have filled up almost the entire memory on the digital recorder. I spent at least twenty minutes the previous night trying to figure out what to delete. I hated to get rid of the Law & Orders I hadn't watched. I contemplated deleting High School Musical but, envisioning the conniption fit Lily would have if I did that, I deleted instead six unwatched episodes of a Masterpiece Theatre recorded last April.

"AND you never bought me the soundtrack!" wails Lily.

"Yes, I did," I say, the picture of calm. "I downloaded the whole album and made you a CD. Remember?"

"Oh yeah"

"Why don't you go look for it in your room?" I know that if I can just break the force field and get her away from the TV, there might not be a meltdown. I have learned the hard way that just turning it off and letting her stew on the couch is a recipe for an ill-tempered child. Just add sugary snacks and we'll have Terminator 3. No need to record that.

Lily goes to her room to look for the CD.

"Everything okay there, honey?" I ask my husband, beaming resentment at his back. How can he rest when there are baths to be had, kids gotten into bed? Has anyone discussed homework?

I know he's thinking that he has been on duty since he got home from work two hours ago. I got home and then went right to my writing class. Now that I am home, he figures the helm is mine again.

Did I demand, inadvertently at some point in time, that when I am around all things defer to me?

It's just that he usually gets it wrong; the hotel room that turned out to be located right next to a prison, the U2 tickets where we sat in the nosebleed section behind the band

He sounds so reasonable. I sound so controlling.

Actually, I don't even think Mike views surfing the Net as resting. He is pre-historic Man, out hunting on the plains of eBay. He will make the kill and do the modern equivalent of dragging it home to his den--pay for the item and first class shipping using PayPal. He'll wait eagerly for the yellow slip that says there's a package being held behind the counter at the post office. At last he has his Mocha Ware jug, his turn-of-the-century tobacco sign, or his vintage board game.

A few days later, his prize will sit on the dining room table, abandoned. The fact that the packing materials--a twice-used Kraft Macaroni & Cheese case box and balled-up newspapers from Nebraska--have not been put into Recycling will drive me mental. When I can't stand it any longer, I will stick the prize in a cupboard somewhere.

Mike takes pleasure just knowing he has acquired a new possession. He doesn't even need to see it later. I feel suffocated by the stuff spilling out of the attic and our closets--the nine-by-twelve foot goat hair rug that is allowed to go on our floors only after I am dead; the bags of tissue paper and packing peanuts we'll find handy should we open a Mailboxes Etc.; the box of men's pink oxford shirts that just might come back into fashion.

I figure if there is a way to make Mike thinkhe has bought something--you know like a virtual eBay in which objects don't actually change hands--we could maybe pay less and not have to deal with storing the stuff. Brilliant!

My therapist--you can see why I need therapy--says that it is too much to hope that my husband will know what I want him to do. I need to settle for him being willing and able to respond if I ask him to do something.

Perhaps this is why command shifts to me as soon as I walk in the door.

"Honey, can you put the kids to bed?" I ask. I forget to say please.

"Sure," he says. I notice he has switched to playing solitaire on the computer. A few more keystrokes and he closes the program. Why am I always making people switch off machinery?

"Come on, Hanna, let's go," he says to our other daughter, the quiet one, the one who gets lost in my battles with Lily.

I would like to take her in my arms, ask her what's going on in that head of hers, find out how her favorite bear, Bobby, is holding up. Instead I say, "I'll come kiss you good night when you're ready."

Father and daughter leave.

I fall, face-first into the family room couch. The cat jumps up onto me and settles down on my back, purring. After a minute or two, I turn my head sideways. The small family room is separated from the kitchen by a peninsula where we eat most of our meals together. I can see crumbs all over it. The milk has been left out. An empty dog food can is sitting by the sink. I can smell it from the couch.

I can't stand it. I haul myself to my feet to tidy up a bit. The cat jumps away, meowing her disgust. I can hear the kids arguing about who leant whom her toothpaste. I don't hear Mike. I wonder where he went.

Perhaps he snuck upstairs to check the football scores.