For over a year now, I have bragged about how well my roommates and I get along. We rarely argue about anything and I have lived a charmed existence among them. However, the other night we finally had a blow out concerning dishes, of all things.

I am the self-proclaimed "mom" of the apartment. I enjoy cooking, cleaning and — in general — living in a sanitary environment. I'm also an only child and have always thrived on the belief that if you want something done right, you do it yourself. But when, after a long day, I finally did ask for help doing the zillion spaghetti-stained dishes, I got silence as a response. The argument ensued. I had recently banned one of my roommates from doing dishes. I had found a speck of food on a clean plate one morning and lost it. That was her excuse.

My other roommate pointed out to me the fact that it was OK for me to do them since I "like to do them." I was enraged. Certainly I have high standards for cleanliness, but any offer of help would not go unacknowledged by myself.

It was also brought to my attention that I didn't give any of them a chance to clean. If one of them had planned on cleaning the kitchen, they would come home to find I had already done it. It seems that they got the impression that it was either my way or the highway when it comes to cleaning and that they might as well just leave it up to me.

Needless to say, the evening ended in tears. I was horrified they thought this way of me. I confess I am a perfectionist to the core, but to think I scared them away from any of the household responsibilities was simply mortifying. I didn't want to be thought of the dictator roommate. They ended up apologizing later for painting my life in such a trivializing manner and I promised to try and not be so anal.

The next day while flipping through a fashion magazine — a typical activity when I'm trying to avoid something, such as studying for a statistics exam — I decided to read my horoscope. Now I typically don't read them and if I do, it's the daily one in the newspaper — not the ridiculous monthly kind. What I read astonished me. "Pick your battles. Don't cause a ruckus over dirty dishes in the sink."

I read it to one of my roommates who mentioned that I should have seen that the day before so our tiff wouldn't have happened. I, on the other hand, was pleased to have read it when I did. It certainly made us all laugh and made me think seriously about putting more stock in horoscopes.

But I had to wonder, in the war of life, what battles should you pick? I have argued countless parking tickets, but have never had one reversed. Should I simply accept the $15 plus fines even when I feel I have been wronged by the system?

And how about all my odd little obsessions? While they certainly are annoying to some — OK, most — they make up who I am and define me as a person of distinct tastes and preferences. Should I just give them all up so others can breathe a little easier?

I guess it really comes down to perspective. In the long run, $100 in outstanding parking tickets is a bad thing. Having all the dishes perfectly washed, dried and put away everyday is not. This doesn't mean I still won't do it —I have a thing about water spots on glassware — but at least now I can recognize that its not worth shedding tears over and that its OK to let others help me even if it's not perfectly following "Christina's code of cleanliness." Living with three other ladies is certainly one wild party. I just need to learn not to let my standards become the fifth one to make a crowd.

Mahady is a senior journalism major.

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