If it’s a good group of people, nine will make the messes and one will clean up. That’s in a good group, and most groups are good, but sometimes that one in ten becomes the one in twenty or the one who never showed up.

Rooming houses, apartment buildings, offices: all the same.

The one in ten often doesn’t like it, but cannot do otherwise than clean up after the nine who seem oblivious to the mess, the role they play in it, the injustice felt by that one, who most likely was the person in the triplex who week after week took out the common trash bins to the curb. And put them back– sometimes after four days, when no one else would.

If someone went up to one of the nine and asked, “What about the idea of ‘the one in ten?’ Are you ever that person?”

“Oh yeah! The guy who has to buy the birthday card for my dad because my brothers and sisters won’t?” he says. “I’ve known some other people in the exact same boat.”

It’s the greatest stretch I ever have to make, the idea that other people are more like me than I would think. As someone who does rare and special things, I am constantly aghast at the lack of recognition and tormented by the insignificance of those very things that are obviously of little to no import or significance.

But the nine need the one in ten.

For every one, there might well be another nine. To look at the other nine and not know how each is one in ten is to confront that fundamental ignorance in my own self that I so readily seem to see in others who are oblivious to the unique and esteemed vocation I have as a one in ten to them.

A husband, a wife, a three-year-old boy, a 2-week-old boy. a year-old dog: four agents of chaos, one agent of order.

The self-described agent of order has the self-appointed charge of trying to keep everything in reasonable order– wash the dishes, do the laundry, spot clean, manage the yard, put things away.

The other adult does most of the cooking and direct child care: dressing, undressing, cleaning, washing.

The three-year-old tears through everything and scatters it to every corner of the house and yard.

The latter two do so without complaint.

“If I didn’t pull these pots and pans out of the cupboard, they would stay there. If I didn’t wear all these clothes, nobody would.” I never hear that.

“If I didn’t dump these toys out in the living room, no one would ever put them away.” Never hear that.

“Why do I have to wash all the dishes, and collect the trash and put it outside in the bins?” I could ask, but that would negate the value of the job.

The value of the job is not so much in keeping a somewhat clean house, or staying busy, or having two presentable kids. The real value of the job is to contribute in the ways I’m naturally inclined, doing my thing as it is beneficial without it being any kind of deal, without pretending I shouldn’t have to do it, being grateful for the chance to be “a really useful engine,” helping the rest of the household to live their natural lives without stress, guilt, or apology.