Here’s a multiple-choice question: Which of the following is the longest-running battle in American history?

A) The battle at the Alamo

B) The Battle of Bunker Hill

C) Texas high school player Eddie Battle, whose 99-yard touchdown run last year made him a long-running battle in anyone’s book.

D) The marital battle over household chores.

Correct answer: D.

According to historians, this battle has raged since the Stone Age, when cohabitants of cliff dwellings hassled over whose turn it was to take the mastodon bones to the curb.

The onset of two-career households further defined the battle lines.

Where I live, household-chore dialogues have always been reduced to questions answered with questions:

“Don’t you smell that?”

“Smell what?”

And:

“Where did all this crud come from?”

“What crud?”

And: