Handle the instance

The row is named, its two sentences are agreed, and then it's Tuesday and the dishwasher's full. This is what you do, and the whole of it takes ten minutes.

Say the name. Whoever notices first says it. "This is the dishwasher." Not "here we go again", which has an edge, and not "you're doing it again", which is an accusation. The name, flat, as a statement of what's in the room. It can be said at the first sentence, which is best, or four minutes in when one of you recognises the drift. Late is fine. The name works at any point before the record opens.

Answer tonight's costume. The dishwasher needs emptying. Someone empties it, or you agree who'll do it in the morning, and that's the costume dealt with. If the costume is the in-laws, the answer is what dates and how many nights, decided in a sentence. If it's the phone, the phone goes in the drawer. Tonight's topic gets a small, literal answer, because it's a small, literal thing, and the fresh case only ever made it big by loading the row onto it.

One sentence each on the underneath. This is where the ten minutes go, and it's the part that makes the difference. Each of you says your sentence from chapter 21, in the present tense, about tonight. "I felt on my own when I saw it." "I felt got at when you said it." The other one says "I know" or "all right". Not "but", not "you always", not March. Just the sentence heard. You've each said the true thing, and the true thing has been heard, and that's what the fresh case never managed in fifty attempts.

Leave the record shut. Nothing from before tonight. If you catch yourself reaching for Sunday or March, that's the moment to say "that's the record, I'm not opening it". If your partner opens it, you don't answer the entry. You say the name again. The record is the fresh case's fuel, and an instance with the record shut runs out in minutes.

Then stop. Same room, ideally. Ten minutes in, the dishwasher's sorted, two sentences have been said and heard, and the evening is still there. That's what handled looks like. It isn't resolved, because the two of you are still two different people, and next month there'll be another costume. But nothing has been added to the record, nothing's been carried into the between, and the row is a thing that happened for ten minutes rather than a thing that took the evening.

Two pointers. If the instance is about a fact, who said what, which day it was, You don't have to win this one has the move for that. If it's after ten at night, Go to bed cross if you have to says to name a time tomorrow, and the name from this chapter is a good thing to say as you do.