— “Vitya, are you serious right now? So in your opinion I spend all day at the office shuffling papers, then come home and here I also… rest?”
Natalya froze with the iron in her hand. Hot steam hissed out of the soleplate, but she didn’t even notice. She was staring at her husband, sprawled lazily on the couch in front of the TV. In one hand he held the remote, in the other a half-bitten sandwich—crumbs from it had already decorated the fresh carpet Natalia had cleaned just yesterday.
Viktor, without taking his eyes off the screen where twenty-two millionaires were chasing a ball across a green field, waved a hand lazily.
— “Oh, Natash, don’t start. What are you worked up about? I’m just stating a fact. It’s not the nineteenth century. The washer does the laundry, the dishwasher does the dishes, the floor gets vacuumed by that round robot of yours—what’s it called… Buzzik. And you just press buttons. That’s management, not work. And I’m on-site all day on my feet, dealing with people, foremen. I’m stressed. I have the right to come home and relax, not listen to your complaints about scattered socks.”
Natalya slowly set the iron on its stand. Inside her, something snapped. A thin, ringing string of patience she’d been stretching for the past twelve years of marriage finally broke with a deafening crack.
— “So I’m just pressing buttons?” she asked in a very quiet voice.
— “Well, yeah.” Viktor finally bothered to turn his head toward her. “Isn’t that true? You’re not rinsing laundry in the river. You’re not baking bread in an oven. The technology does everything. So don’t act like some kind of heroine. Dinner, by the way—soon? I want cutlets. Homemade. The cafeteria served garbage today.”
Natalya pulled the iron’s plug from the outlet. Neatly rolled up the cord. Looked at the mountain of un-ironed laundry: Viktor’s shirts, his pants, their teenage son’s T-shirts, bedding. Then she looked at her husband. He was already back in the match, scratching his belly under a stretched-out undershirt.
— “Dinner?” she repeated, and a strange lightness appeared in her voice—one Viktor didn’t recognize. “You want cutlets?”
— “Yeah, with mashed potatoes. And make gravy the way you do—creamy.”
— “All right,” Natalya nodded. “The technology will do it.”
She left the room, closing the door firmly behind her. Viktor, pleased that his wife had stopped “nagging” and gone to the kitchen to perform her direct duties, turned up the volume on the TV. He didn’t notice that Natalya hadn’t gone to the kitchen—she went to the bedroom.
There she took a book from the shelf—one she hadn’t been able to finish for half a year because of the endless “second shift” at the stove and with cleaning—poured herself a glass of cool mineral water, lay down on the bed, and switched on the nightlight.
Forty minutes later, the bedroom door flew open. Viktor stood in the doorway, confused and slightly annoyed.
— “Nat, I don’t get it. It’s eight o’clock and there’s no smell of cutlets. Did you fall asleep or something?”
Natalya turned a page, adjusted her pillow, and calmly looked at him over her glasses.
— “No, Vitya, I didn’t fall asleep. I’m resting. Like you said.”
— “What do you mean? What about dinner?”
— “Well, you said technology does everything. So let the stove fry your cutlets, the fridge chop the salad, and the multicooker make the mashed potatoes. Press the buttons—it’s simple. Management.”
Viktor snorted, deciding his wife was joking. A bad joke, a “woman’s” joke—but a joke.
— “Very funny. Stop sulking. Get up, I’m hungry. I’m tired after work.”
— “I’m tired too,” Natalya answered evenly. “I had the annual report today. Numbers, tables, taxes. I wasn’t playing solitaire, you know. And since, in your opinion, my housework is laziness and doing nothing, I’ve decided to stop being lazy. From now on I’ll only work at work. And at home—I’ll rest. Like you.”
Viktor stood there another minute, trying to process what he’d heard. Then he waved his hand.
— “Fine, do whatever you want. PMS or something? I’ll boil dumplings myself.”
He stomped off to the kitchen. She could hear him clanging pots, slamming the freezer door. Natalya smiled with the corners of her lips and went back to reading. She knew: this was only the beginning.
The next morning started with chaos.
— “Natasha! Where are my blue socks?!” Viktor’s yell came from deep inside the closet.
Natalya, already dressed in a strict office suit, calmly drank coffee in the kitchen. She’d gotten up half an hour later than usual, because she hadn’t made her husband breakfast or packed him a lunchbox.
— “Natasha! Can you hear me? I’m late! Where are the socks?!”
Viktor burst into the kitchen in nothing but underwear and one sock on his left foot. He looked rumpled and furious.
— “Good morning,” Natalya smiled. “I don’t know where your socks are. Probably where you left them.”
— “They’re in the laundry basket! Why aren’t they washed? And there are none in the clean drawer!”
— “Strange,” Natalya shrugged. “But you said the washer does the laundry. Looks like you forgot to press the button. Or maybe the washer didn’t feel like walking into the bathroom, collecting your socks off the floor, and loading them into the drum. Lazy technology these days, right?”
Viktor went crimson.
— “Are you messing with me? I’ve got nothing to wear!”
— “Put on black ones. Or gray.”
— “They don’t go with blue pants! And anyway, it’s your job to keep track of my clothes!”
— “It was,” Natalya corrected him, setting her cup in the sink. “It was my job—until you explained that it isn’t work at all, just entertainment. So I decided to entertain myself differently. All right, darling, I’m off. The bus won’t wait.”
She kissed her stunned husband on the cheek and flitted out of the apartment.
That evening Natalya stayed late at a café with a friend. She came home around nine, full and content. The apartment smelled suspiciously like something burnt and… dirty.
In the kitchen a mountain of dishes had formed. Dirty plates stood in the sink, on the table, even on the stove; a frying pan with hardened grease; cups with coffee grounds. Their fourteen-year-old son, Artyom, sat in his room with headphones on. Viktor lay on the couch.
— “Oh, you’re back,” he grunted without turning around. “The fridge is empty. Me and Tema ordered pizza. Boxes are in the hallway—take the trash out, it stinks already.”
Natalya went into the hallway. Sure enough, three empty pizza boxes lay right on the floor. She carefully stepped over them.
— “The one who’s bothered by the smell takes out the trash,” she tossed over her shoulder and went to the bathroom.
There, a surprise awaited her: the laundry basket was overflowing. On top lay Viktor’s very blue pants, with a greasy stain across them. Apparently lunch at work hadn’t gone well.
— “Natash!” Viktor shouted from the living room. “Throw those pants in the wash, I’ve got a meeting tomorrow! Spray stain remover on it or it won’t come out!”
Natalya took a shower, trying not to look at the chaos. When she came out, she walked past her husband.
— “The washer’s in the bathroom. Stain remover’s on the shelf. Instructions are online. Good night.”
A week passed. The apartment that had always gleamed thanks to Natalia’s efforts slowly but surely turned into a pigsty.
Sand crunched underfoot in the entryway—“Buzzik” for some reason didn’t switch itself on and clean the mat, and Viktor refused to start it, considering it beneath his dignity. In the sink, new life had begun to develop. The countertop was sticky from spilled tea and crumbs.
Viktor went to work in jeans and a sweater because the ironed shirts ran out on day three. He was gloomy, angry, and constantly tried to provoke Natalya into a fight. But Natalya held the line brilliantly. She cooked only for herself—light salads, cottage cheese, fruit. She ate right away and washed one plate and one fork after herself. She washed her own clothes separately too, quickly and quietly.
— “Mom, I don’t have any clean T-shirts,” Artyom whined, peeking into her room.
— “Sweetie, the washing machine isn’t broken. The detergent is where it always is. I showed you last year how to turn it on. Two buttons. You can handle it. You’re an advanced user—you build computers. You can’t handle a washer?”
Artyom pouted but went to do laundry. Unlike his father, he had enough sense to realize Mom wasn’t joking. A couple of days later the teenager was managing on his own, and—much to Natalya’s surprise—once he even washed his plate.
But Viktor was stubborn as a nail. He dug in. He waited for his wife to “get over it.”
The climax came on Friday evening.
— “Natasha, Mom is coming on Sunday,” Viktor announced in a triumphant tone, stepping into the kitchen where Natalya was slicing an apple. “Passing through, she’ll sleep here. So cut out this circus. The apartment needs to be put in order. You don’t want Zinaida Mikhailovna to see this mess and think you’re a bad homemaker, do you?”
That was a dirty trick. Zinaida Mikhailovna—his mother—was old-school; you could perform surgery on her floors. Any speck of dust was a personal insult to her. Natalya’s relationship with her was tense and politely cold, and Viktor knew how much his wife feared his mother’s criticism.
Natalya set the knife down. Looked at the pile of dishes that already resembled the Leaning Tower of Pisa. At the sticky floor. At the dust on the TV, thick enough to draw in with a finger.
— “Great news,” she smiled. “A mom is wonderful. Let her come.”
— “There we go, we’ve agreed,” Viktor grinned. “Tomorrow morning—major cleaning. I’ve arranged to go fishing with the guys, they’ve been asking for ages, so you’ll handle everything here… Start Buzzik, turn on the washer. You know, as usual. I’ll be back by evening, I’ll check.”
— “Go, of course,” Natalya nodded. “Rest. You need to recharge.”
Saturday was glorious for Viktor. Fishing, sauna, men’s talk. He was sure his strategic move with Mom had worked. Natalya, for all her current nonsense, wouldn’t let herself be shamed in front of her mother-in-law. She was surely scrubbing the apartment all day, baking pies, starching tablecloths.
He returned late in the evening, a little tipsy, expecting cleanliness, the smell of baking, and a humbled wife.
The key turned in the lock. Viktor stepped into the hallway and… tripped over a trash bag that had been standing there since Monday—except now there were three.
The apartment was quiet and dark. And it didn’t smell like pies. It smelled like stale trash and sour milk.
Viktor switched on the light and was stunned. Nothing had changed. No—things were even worse. Socks lay on the floor. The hallway mirror was smeared.
— “Natasha!” he roared, storming into the bedroom.
His wife sat on the bed with a laptop, choosing vacation packages to a health resort.
— “What is this?!” Viktor jabbed a finger toward the hallway. “You didn’t clean anything? Mom’s coming tomorrow at ten!”
— “I remember,” Natalya replied calmly. “So?”
— “You want to disgrace me?! Do you understand what she’ll say?”
— “Vitya,” Natalya closed the laptop. “You told me cleaning is nothing. That technology does it. So I left everything to the technology. Looks like it didn’t manage. And I’m not interfering. I’m lazy, remember. I only know how to press buttons.”
— “To hell with the technology!” Viktor bellowed. “You’re a woman! You’re the homemaker! This is your house!”
— “This is our house, Vitya. Ours. And this dirt is ours. More precisely, mostly yours. I clean up after myself. Artyom has started too. But this pigsty is a monument to your attitude toward my work. And I’m not touching it. Let your mom see. Let her see how her beloved son lives when his ‘lazy’ wife stops wiping up after him.”
— “You… you wouldn’t dare.”
— “Oh, I absolutely would. Good night, Vitya. Tomorrow’s going to be a hard day.”
Sunday morning was sunny and bright. The doorbell rang at exactly ten sharp. Viktor—pale, with eyes red from sleeplessness (he had spent half the night trying to cram dishes into the dishwasher, but it refused to run because of a clogged filter he had never cleaned)—dragged himself to the door.
Zinaida Mikhailovna stood on the threshold. In a perfectly pressed suit, hair impeccably styled, inspection in her gaze.
— “Hello, son!” she declared, stepping inside. “Well, show me how you’re—oh my God.”
She froze, staring at the heap of shoes tossed everywhere and the layer of sand on the floor.
— “Mom, come in, don’t bother taking your shoes off, it’s all… dirty anyway,” Viktor mumbled, wanting the ground to swallow him.
Natalya came out of the kitchen. Fresh, beautiful, with flawless makeup.
— “Hello, Zinaida Mikhailovna! How was the trip?”
The mother-in-law’s eyes flicked from the daughter-in-law to the son, then to the pile of pizza boxes in the corner. Her nostrils flared sharply.
— “Natasha? What is going on here? Are you moving? Were you robbed? Why is the house in such… disorder?”
Natalya smiled sweetly and spread her hands.
— “Oh, Zinaida Mikhailovna, no one robbed us. Vitya just opened my eyes. Apparently, for years I’ve been doing nonsense, pretending to be busy. He explained to me that in the twenty-first century you don’t have to clean or cook—technology does everything. By itself. And I, silly me, for some reason was getting tired. So now we live in a new way. Modern. We’re just waiting for the robot vacuum to evolve and learn how to take out the trash, and for the dishwasher to collect plates off the table on its own. Right, Vitya?”
Viktor stood leaning against the doorframe; his face had blended into the gray wallpaper.
Zinaida Mikhailovna slowly walked into the kitchen. She saw dried buckwheat on the stove. Stains on the countertop. She ran a finger along the windowsill and flicked her hand away in disgust.
— “Vitya,” she said in an icy tone. “Is this true? You said that to your wife?”
— “Mom, she’s twisting it! I just said it’s easier for her than for our grandmothers in the village—”
— “Easier?!” Zinaida Mikhailovna’s voice shot up. “You parasite! I raised you, I didn’t sleep nights! In my day I boiled diapers! And now technology does everything for him, does it? And who services that technology? Who loads it, unloads it, washes it, cleans it? Who shops for groceries? Who plans the meals? Do you even know how much a kilo of beef costs now? Or do you think cutlets grow on trees?”
Viktor pressed himself into the wall. He expected his mother to scold his wife—and got a knife in the back from his own mother.
— “Mom, why are you like this…”
— “Because I can see how you live! You’ve turned into a lord! You made a mess! You drove your wife to this! Natashenka, dear,” she turned to her daughter-in-law, and her voice softened as if by magic. “You probably haven’t even had breakfast yet. Come on, let’s go to the café nearby. I saw a good pastry shop. We’ll have coffee, eat some cakes. And this… manager can deal with this.”
— “With pleasure, Zinaida Mikhailovna,” Natalya barely held back a laugh.
— “Mom, what about me?” Viktor asked pitifully. “I’m hungry too.”
— “You, son, press a button,” his mother snapped. “Let the fridge make you a sandwich. Or the robot cook you porridge. And until you clean up this… this pigsty, I don’t want to see you. Shameful! A grown man living like in a barn!”
They left—two women united against a shared injustice. Viktor remained alone in the ruined apartment.
He looked at the mountain of dishes. The dishes stared back at him in silence.
— “Well then, Buzzik,” he said darkly, nudging the robot vacuum, which blinked a sad red light, demanding its bin be emptied. “Looks like we’re in trouble.”
The next five hours became the worst trial of Viktor’s life. He started with the dishes. It turned out dried grease doesn’t wash off “by itself.” You have to scrub it. For a long time. Dully. Breaking your nails. It turned out the dishwasher has to be loaded a certain way, or nothing gets clean.
Then he tackled the floor. The robot vacuum really was clogged. He had to pick out clumps of dust and hair with his hands. It was disgusting. Then he mopped, and his back started aching after just twenty minutes.
Laundry. Figuring out the washer’s programs turned out harder than construction drawings. He threw everything in together, and his white T-shirt turned a delicate pink because of a red sock.
Ironing. That was a whole separate circle of hell. The iron was heavy, the steam burned his hands, and creases reappeared the moment he looked away.
By the time the women returned, Viktor was sitting in the kitchen. He was sweaty, in a dirty undershirt, but the kitchen gleamed—relatively. The floor was clean. The trash was out.
Natalya and Zinaida Mikhailovna came in, cheerful and relaxed.
— “There,” his mother said, surveying the place. “See? You can do it when you want to. At least you look like a human being again.”
Natalya didn’t say anything. She simply walked over to the stove, where an empty pot sat.
— “Vit, have you eaten anything?”
— “No,” he muttered. “No time. I was pressing buttons.”
Natalya looked at his hands—red and rough from water and chemicals. At his tired face. At that pink T-shirt hanging sadly on the drying rack.
— “Sit down,” she said softly. “I’ll boil some dumplings. Store-bought, but good ones.”
Viktor looked up at her. The old arrogance was gone. There was understanding—deep, hard-won understanding of what that “invisible” home comfort actually costs.
— “Natash,” he said quietly when she set a bowl of steaming dumplings in front of him. “I’m sorry. I was an idiot. A complete moron.”
— “You were,” she agreed, sitting beside him.
— “I really thought it was easy. Just buzzing and spinning… but it doesn’t jump up and do it all by itself. My back’s falling apart.”
— “Falling apart,” Natalya nodded. “Now imagine doing that after eight hours of working with numbers. Every day. For years.”
Viktor took her hand and kissed her palm.
— “I’ll never say anything about buttons again. I swear. And… maybe we should buy a bigger dishwasher? And hire a cleaner once a week? I’ll get a bonus, I’ll pay for it.”
— “Deal,” Natalya smiled. “Now eat, before it gets cold.”
Zinaida Mikhailovna, watching from the hallway, nodded to herself with satisfaction and went to unpack her bag of gifts. The lesson had been learned.
From that day on, life in the family changed. No, Viktor didn’t become a cleaning enthusiast. He still sometimes tossed his socks around. But he stopped calling his wife lazy. He learned to load the dishwasher (properly!) and took over buying groceries. And most importantly, he understood that housework is work—work that deserves gratitude, not contempt.
Sometimes, when he started grumbling again about an un-ironed shirt, Natalya would simply look silently at the iron. And Viktor would immediately stop, remembering that “day of great laziness,” and go pick up the ironing board himself—because peace at home and a hot dinner cost far more than male pride.
Thank you for reading this story! If this situation feels familiar and you enjoyed it, I’ll be happy if you leave a like and subscribe. And be sure to write in the comments: how do you split household responsibilities in your family?
