We Left for Work; They Formed a Task Force.

What an evening. We’ve just finished dinner with both sets of parents, and over dessert we finally learned what they’d all been up to while Ranih and I were at work. Let’s just say… they were far more productive than we ever asked them to be.

Ranih had predicted it perfectly: our mothers teamed up the moment we left the house. According to them, they “just did a little tidying,” which of course translates to a full‑scale, military‑precision sweep of every room. Not that the place needed it, at least not by our standards, but clearly we fall short of the elite maternal benchmark.  

For the record, we live by a very old saying: “A tidy home is a sign of a boring life.” We’re tidy enough to function, but not so tidy that we spend our free time alphabetising spice racks. Our mothers, however, operate on a different philosophical plane entirely.

Meanwhile, our fathers formed their own alliance. They spent the morning in the back garden, apparently unable to resist the urge to “straighten a few things up,” which somehow turned into a full tidy and minor re‑organisation. After lunch they wandered off to the central complex, where they spent a very happy afternoon rotating between the holosuits and the leisure facilities like two teenagers on shore leave.

Eventually, the mothers joined them for a relaxing Risen‑style holosuit programme, the kind with soft lighting, gentle music, and scenery designed to lower your blood pressure by several points. By the time we all sat down for dinner, they looked like they’d spent the day at a luxury retreat rather than reorganising our lives.

All in all, they had a wonderful day. And honestly, so did we, even if we’re now slightly afraid to check how much “tidying” actually happened.

Image from unsplash by atman studios