“Hey, M!” Boyfriend calls from the shower. “I’m out of soap!”

“Why don’t you just use mine?” I yell back through a mouthful of Mini Wheats.

“That’s not soap. It’s that gel stuff.”

“Oh right, and your manly pheromones will be damaged beyond repair if you subject them to my Peach Wisteria shower gel.”

“I just need soap. Bars of soap. Ok?”

“Ok.” I pause, think for a second about the exchange, then march into the bathroom. “You realize what just happened here, right?”

“Huh?” he replies, eyes squeezed shut as he lathers his hair.

“You need soap. So your first instinct is to tell me you need soap. The unspoken understanding is that now I’ll head to the store to buy soap for you. The same goes for juice, toilet paper, the whole list of household items. You need ‘em, I go get ‘em.”

“Uh, is that a problem?”

“It’s not a problem, as long as we acknowledge what’s really going on. You need domestic duties performed, you tell me, I get them done. It’s part of the unspoken arrangement we’ve got going here. I don’t hate buying soap or putting dishes away, but it’s something I wouldn’t otherwise be doing if you weren’t part of my whole life equation. I’m putting in time and energy, and you’re getting something out of it.”

“So your life equation is somehow disrupted by getting me a bar of soap?”

“Just remember, nothing comes for free,” I say ominously.

“What does that mean? Have I made some kind of Faustian bargain here without knowing it?”

“Depends on how you look at it. Right now, I’d say you’re getting a pretty good deal. Though you might want to start taking a shine to puppies and babies in the very near future.”