Jerry and Josh looked at each other, realizing at the same time that their mother had said 'bathrooms'. "Both of them!" The brothers yelled up at the same time.
"Yes, both of them." Their mother responded. After a brief pause, she continued, "Alright fine... Josh, you clean the downstairs bathroom; Jerry, you get the upstairs." They could hear the smile in her voice.
"Very funny Mom!" Josh yelled up to her.
"Just a little humor, Josh." She yelled back down. "Now, get off your butt and get to those choirs done, like I had asked an hour ago." There was a fait echo of footsteps. Their mother must have moved away from the basement door.
Jerry sighed, "Just what I wanted to do after using the Chronivac, chores..." Their mother had been referring to the first story bathroom, which probably needed to be cleaned for the guests to use tomorrow, and one of the second story bathrooms. Their parents had one in the master bedroom, and the twins had their own, directly across from their bedroom, which they were responsible for cleaning.
"Come on, let's just get it over with...." Josh started before a cold draft made them shiver. Intuitively, they folded their arms around their torso to stave off the cold.
"Uh... maybe clothes first, and then get to the bathrooms." Jerry stated. He stared down at the ripped fragments of the previous set of clothes they had been wearing. The two of them then went to the hamper along the far wall and retrieved a pair of jeans. They easily slipped them on, and their hands fluidly placed the button through tiny hole to fasten them. It felt like second nature to move and work together, thanks the the program wizard's forethought. They had asked it to to give them dominance over their own half of the body they shared, but the wizard insightfully gave them the adequate muscle memory to move their individual limbs in tandem. Jerry stifled a laugh thinking about how challenging it would have been if they did not have the innate coordination they do now.
Josh reached back into the hammer and gabbed the first shirt he saw. His brother grabbed the other side of the shirt to stretch it out. Josh paused when he saw two neck-holes on the simple red shirt. "We must have to get custom shirts made or something."
Jerry waited to respond until their had pulled the shirt over themselves and slipped both of their heads through. "Mom sews... See here." He lifted the middle of their shirt and showed the faint stitching that ran down the middle. "Much cheaper and easier then trying to buy custom made shirts." He then let the fabric fall back against their stomach. "Okay, so now onto cleaning."
They turned around walked back toward the center of the room. Josh looked toward the fragments of clothes, thinking that they should pick up those before their mom finds them. He set his foot down onto the ground, and a moment later, he felt an uncomfortable tug toward the right. His twin tried rotating their hips towards the stairs and taking a step in the opposite direction that Josh had intended. Their was a brief feeling of tug-of-war as Josh tried leaning their torso toward the left and Jerry tried pulling them to the right. Jerry placed his foot back on the ground besides Josh's to keep them from falling over.
"Where are you going?" They questioned each other, speaking in tandem. Responding to each other, Josh pointed to the tattered clothes on the ground, and Jerry pointed to the stairs.
A smile crept over Jerry's face. "Wow, we actually attempted walking... in opposite directions."
Josh mirrored his brother's smile. It was funny to him too how they had unintentionally tried moving toward different destinations. Josh made a mental note that they could make mistakes like that even with their synced muscle memory. "Yeah... we probably need to be more specific when communicating. I thought you wanted to throw our old set of clothes away; we kind of need to before mom finds them."
"Good idea." Jerry replied, and the two gathered them and tossed them in the trash. Back on the same page, they walked up the stairs, out of the basement landing. Just outside the door, their mother had left the cleaning supplies they would need plus a lot of rags. The brother collected the supplies and stepped into the bathroom.
The first floor bathroom had a white tile floor with blue walls. It has a porcelain standing skink with the toilet beside it. There was also a cabinet with towels and extra toilet paper placed in front of the toilet.
"Okay, how about we try and split up the work." Josh stated as they set what they were carrying down.
Jerry raised his eyebrows. "Uh... is this another joke?"
"What I mean, is that you clean the toilet while I clean the sink and mirror. They're right next to each other, so we should be able to clean them at the same time if we stand in the middle."
Jerry looked back and forth between the skin and toilet. "Okay... but then I want to clean the sink."
"You can't. The toilet is on the right, which is your side." Josh stated.
"How convenient..." Jerry answered, but agreed to try his brother's plan.
They each grabbed a rag, and then both reached for the multi-purpose cleaner. There was a brief battle between them, as they each tried pull it out of the other's hand, but Jerry ended up being the victor as he had the better grip. After spraying as much of the toilet as he could from where they stood, Josh hastily grabbed the cleaner from him. Josh would then try wiping down the bowl of the skink, before being yanked down by Jerry so he could scrub the side of the toilet. Josh would retaliate by leaning to the right so Jerry would smack his head against the toilet, before he tried to force them to stand up. Back and forth they went for several minutes, each battling the other, more as a fight for control, than actually cleaning. Their final clash ended up making them lose balance and falling hard onto their butt.
They sat on the floor, facing their half completed task. Their back rested against the opposite wall. After several long moments, Josh huffed, "You don't have to say it. It was a dumb idea trying to split up the work like that."
"Yeah, well I stupidly agreed to your dumb idea." Jerry sighed.
"The wizard may have made us know how to move our body together, but we're not always thinking or acting like we have only one body."
"Uh... What do mean?" Jerry look at his brother in confusion. "I can clearly see we only have one body."
"Yeah, but we both thought that we could try doing two completely different things at the same time." Josh stated. "We're not used to the limitations of only having one body between us... yet."
Jerry smirked, "I guess our little bathroom brawl kind of proves that."
"Yeah... it was ridiculous." Josh smiled "We just need to re-think how to do things so we don't end up fighting each other over something as stupid as cleaning a toilet. Truce?"
"Oh, I guess... for now." Jerry smiled as he fist bumped his brother. They stood up, and then began tackling the toilet together.
After they finished the first floor bathroom, they moved on and cleaned their own bathroom on the second floor. It took them about half the time on their bathroom, compared to the first. With their chores now done, they were free for the rest of the day.