whatever. go my scarab

Minoth was that perfect mean between industrious and lazy: pragmatic. He was always willing to take care of whatever mundane tasks laid themselves out in course of the day just as they appeared - drying dishes, packing leftovers, emptying the trash, vacuuming his car, going to the bank...

Pandoria would at times even go so far as to call him an adulting warrior.

Minoth also never apologized for the time it took to knock out these tasks, or the silent, methodical way in which he approached them. It was clear that this routine he kept was not exactly nothing to him, but that he kept a careful thumb on it in a way that ensured that he would subdue the chores, and that the chores would never manage to subdue him.

All this meant that when Pandy asked to hang out, it was a request in contention with carefully commodified busyness and leisure time, infused with the piousness that Amalthus had instilled in his unwilling mentee from an impressionable and formative age.

Monday? Tidying. Tuesday? Dust. Wednesday? Windex. Thursday? Groceries. Friday? Bathroom. Saturday? Laundry. Sunday? Rest.

Okay, for real. It was kind of freaky.

And yet, Pandy knew Minoth wasn't a clean freak, nor was he completely without the social sensibilities that would encourage one to remember that, wait a minute, I'm a real person living in the real world and surely all this can wait, or be subjugated in stages, or if worst came to worst, tackled in tandem.

She was, in a word, perplexed. Just what could he be doing, holed up in his attic apartment for days on end at the joint numerous ends of long, draining workdays?

At last she got herself on the inside to find out. Pandy half expected to find Minoth scrubbing the stove when she arrived (though it was neuteredly electric, and not a messy, crusty gas range), applying a scrub brush to each greasy grate and gasket.

But Minoth was doing nothing of the kind. Instead, he was sat on his futon, drinking an old-fashioned from a thrift-store tumbler and reading a well-worn novel. No shoes; one socked foot rested on opposite denim-plated knee.

"Seriously?!"

Minoth rotated his chin with a gentle judder to steer his gaze toward the threshold, offering a bemused look of inquisition to the entrant. The post-reposed socked foot softly hit the ground.

Meanwhile, Pandoria threw splayed hands out to either side to emphasize her difference from the door and make Minoth blink. "If you wanted your quiet time, you could have just said so!"

And I would have, he thought.

"Regardless, it's gone now, so I see and hear." Then, as Pandy tsked and pursed, Minoth raised the tumbler to his lips and tipped back the last quarter ounce of drink.

Glass came down, gravitas.

"Was that all?"

"Well...no," Pandy came a few steps farther in, unbuckling her crossbody fanny pack, "how are you, and junk."

"I'm fine, thanks. Yourself? And junk."

"Ah, y'know. Different day, same...junk. Hey," and now she took proper notice of what sat upon the makeshift coffee table, "is that...?!"

Minoth nodded, having already mentally preserved his page number. "I have companions, you know." Then he turned his attention to the attention-grabbing bug.

"Hey now, Spike. Give me a hand in marriage?"

Spike stilled its mandibular movements and offered exactly one feeler, genteel.

"I said no. Now I'm on your bad side."

Spike obediently flipped over onto its back and feigned frustration.

"You and I both know you're not helpless! Show me your bug jutsu."

Spike got back up and flared its wings.

"Good girl."

"It's a girl?" Pandy questioned incredulously - whether this disbelief was engendered in greater measure by the idea that Minoth could know such a thing or that he could care was unknown.

Minoth smiled, uncharacteristically glib. "I alternate."

It stood to reason, Pandoria supposed. These things were only for our human sensibilities, after all. She watched the beautiful beetle for a few more quiet moments, turning her head to watch how its glistening carapace caught the light.

"You know, I never actually said you couldn't come over on a given Monday."

"You said, 'Monday I'm tidying up.' As in, Monday is out."

He probably had a different creepy-crawly friend for each day of the week, anyway. Pandy figured she probably could handle two or three counts of Turters, but seven? Not a chance. Even if Zeke would say it so.

"As in, that's what I'm doing, just for your information," replied Minoth. His left hand strayed to scratch (?) under Spike's chin (??), and Spike preened (???) for it. "Really, how long do you think it could possibly take to throw a couple pillows back onto the couch and fold a bedspread I didn't feel like fighting in the morning?"

In other words, Minoth's cleaning habits revealed strikingly little about him, because they covered no crazy sins. Pandy had just assumed, and...

"Okayyy... Well, someone my age knows how to respect boundaries a lot better than your old ass, I guess." In attempt to replicate Minoth's inimitable dramatic timing, Pandy pushed a careful finger up the bridge of her nose to spotlight her impossibly-wide and impossibly-thin retro frames, but she just ended up pinching a fold of skin under a wayward nosepad, for her trouble. "Owww..."

"Ouuut of context?" Minoth intoned.

Now Pandy tutted. "Implied nuance, in every context. Because we can't assume- er, infer."

"Too considerate. Not very cognizant."

"You better not be calling me dumb, Mr. Double-Spaced Texts!" And double-spaced texts weren't inherently dumb, no, but Pandy was trying and failing to think of a cleverer way to target Minoth's relatively advanced age in a way that showed his reasonable, idiosyncratic faults, too. Or was it the curse of youth biting her here like Spike seemed to threaten to if she waved a finger too close?

Minoth ignored the taunt. "So ask, next time, will you, dear Pandoria?"

She grinned. "Nahhh. I'll just do what I feel like anyway."