‘Mom, I need a fork.’
Check the sandbox.
‘Mom, I don’t have
any matching socks.’
Check the sandbox.
‘Mom, there’s no more toilet paper.’
Check the sandbox. I
mean, play room.
I’ve come to the conclusion that at least 25% of my
household items are buried like a time capsule someplace on the 3 acres I call
home.
Before I had kids, occasionally I would be missing a sock. As in, it’s just two people’s laundry…I put
all the colored clothes in, but somewhere between the time they went into the
washer and the time they came out of the dryer….
One of two things occurred:
A.
some
strange sock mutation occurred, making them come to life, and one sock actually ATE the other in a fit
of rage over who was prettier….
B.
the big dryer vent pipe on the back of the dryer
is, in all actuality, a secret vortex to a far away land in which articles of
clothing seek freedom by thrusting themselves THRU the lint trap and get
launched out into the yard thru the little box with the flappy doors where the
vent goes. Sort of like Alice falling
thru the hole into Wonderland, but without the little chocolates that say ‘Eat
Me,’ because, let’s be realistic, socks don’t have mouths.
This was PRE-KIDS, though.
Now it appears that there are many household items being held for ransom
someplace in the unknown abyss that is my life…or someone is stealing them.
I’ve begun keeping inventory of said items, and sometimes late
at night I sit Indian-style in the floor, rocking back and forth, trying to
find a pattern or some sign of a code within the list. Wait, is it politically correct to refer to
that as Indian-style? I capitalized
it. Does that help? I retract my last statement. Let the record show that I sit ‘Criss Cross
Apple Sauce’ in the floor. The last
thing I need is to piss someone off. J
Anywho, I sit there in the floor, rearranging index cards,
each of which states one item that has mysteriously disappeared. I feel like a strip mall psychic, rearranging
them trying to hear something, feel something, anything to find them. I walk around the house and call out to them,
waiting to hear their desperate cry from the down inside one of the heat vents
or up in the attic.
Where have they gone?
The inventory list includes:
At least 8 of my son, 6’s socks. Not matching pairs, mind you, just
miscellaneous Buzz Lightyear and Mickey Mouse socks. Though I cannot confirm or deny whether 6 may
have actually destroyed said Mickey Mouse socks since he is faaaaar to old for
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse now. Just ask
him.
Approximately 6 stainless steel mixing bowls. As in, I previously owned two complete sets
of nesting stainless steel mixing bowls.
Now I am down to one big one and two small ones…which does NOT a
complete set make.
2 small Rubbermaid containers, 2 medium Rubbermaid
containers and possibly 1 large Rubbermaid container. Wherever they are, they are not CONTAINING
very efficiently, because they left their lids behind.
Forks. At least
6. How in the Hell do you lose
forks?
Spoons. No, I’m not
kidding. I am literally out of regular
tea spoons. My kids, serious as all get
out, have to pray that every dish is clean if they are going to consume soup,
cereal or yogurt like a normal human being.
Otherwise, our TWO remaining normal spoons (one of which is on it’s last
leg and is breaking) will be dirty, and they are forced to use their fingers to
stretch the corners of their mouths around the enormous serving spoons that remain
in a nice tidy stack in the silverware drawer.
It looks like a magician trying to force his whole fist into his mouth,
and while I find it entertaining, eventually I’m concerned that their mouths
will remain stretched that way like the earlobes of the tribal women who put
plates in their ears as adornment. I
mean, let’s be realistic, some of that stuff just don’t go back!
Glasses. As in, the
drinking kind. God help us ALL the day
we have to start having actual eyewear in my house. My husband finds himself to be quite the
comedian when he announces his hope that someday, we will ‘be grown ups and
have real glasses to drink out of.’ What
he fails to acknowledge is that, at one time, we HAD glasses…Now, I must admit,
I’ve witnessed the untimely death of a couple of glasses, at least one cereal
bowl and the edges of many a dinner plate as 10 completes her ONE AND ONLY
household chore of loading and unloading the dishwasher. Something that, she is nearly certain, is
shaving months off of her lifespan each day.
There’s something about trying to stack 10 dinner plates, 3 coffee mugs
and 2 drinking glasses in the arms of a 10 year old girl as she makes her way
across the kitchen, slopping thru the water she has spilled on the hardwood floor
in the process, that does not have a favorable outcome for dinnerware of any
type. Unless it is plastic and has Elmo
on it. Somehow, those always survive the
process.
Inkpens, tape, glue, staples, batteries, rubberbands,
screwdrivers. Now, some of these I can account for. Pretty much ANYTHING that can affix one item
to another item…..Oh, snap. That stuff
isn’t lasting 35 seconds in a house with a 6 year old boy. If there is even the most remote, slim
possibility that it can attach one car to another car like a tow hook, connect
a fully custom lego Transformer man to a cardboard ‘house’, or attach about 47
pennies to a piece of paper that will undoubtedly be left lying in my floor,
glue seaping thru said paper, onto aforementioned hardwood floors…..I KNOW
where that sh*t went. Talk to 6. He can tell you. Batteries?
Girl, please. At least 4 times a
day, that boy removes 4 batteries from his Flip the Bounceback Racer and puts
them into a Leapster. Then, when he is
done with the Leapster, he removes them again, puts them into a little video
game joystick that plays Pacman. Then,
he takes them out of there and puts them into his V-Tech Innotab, which I’m
nearly certain was created by the Devil himself. Freakin batteries in that thing don’t last
more than 20 minutes, which results in tears because 6 is right in the middle of
forming a 3 syllable word in some game and the stupid thing dies again. All of this is done with the previously mentioned
disappearing screwdrivers….
Toilet paper. I swear
to you, I’m feeding my kids. Somehow,
though, I’m just a teensy bit curious if one of them eats toilet paper. How is it possible to go through 500 sq ft of
toilet paper in a week and a half? I
mean, 6 has the wonderful Kindergarten, every kid has it so now I have it
too,and it’s apparently never going away, cough and drippy nose. After going to his classroom Valentine party,
I’m considering manufacturing my own line of tissues that actually washes their
little grubby hands FOR them as they hold the tissue against their noses….and little bitty shirts with immune
booster pouches in the bend of the arm….because there was not a kid in that
class that wasn’t either blowing his nose or coughing into his elbow to be
found. If I stop blogging suddenly and
leave the country…you know I’ve become an overnight billionaire and have moved
to Australia to own kangaroos and koalas.
I’m just saying. So, I am leaving
an allowance for the 15 squares of two-ply toilet paper that 6 thinks he needs
to blow his nose despite the fact that there is a box of tissues in the same
bathroom. Somehow, though, I continue to
find myself scouring three closets in a desperate search for the coveted toilet
paper…and at least every two weeks I wind up tearing papertowels into three
strips each and trying to drape them ever-so daintily across the empty
cardboard roll that is hanging from my toilet paper dispenser because, once
again, 500 sq ft of toilet paper is gone and we are left wiping with splintery
Bounty. When they say it’s the quicker
picker upper….this is NOT what they meant.
(And, sidebar. Ladies. Do not
EVER, under ANY circumstances, even remotely CONSIDER folding a tidy little
Bounty square and thinking you will use it as a makeshift maxipad because your
monthly friend gets a good deal on an early flight and decides to show up on
your ‘porch’ a few days ahead of schedule, only to discover that you had not
shopped for his visit just yet. I repeat…DO
NOT EVER TRY THIS AT HOME! Let’s just
say, there is at least a small possibility that this may or may not have
happened at my address once….and the results were less than favorable. Use a sock.
Maybe one of the ones that don’t have a damned match anymore. Use a cereal bowl as a catch basin. Maybe one that has huge chips in it from your
kid doing the dishes. Use a handful of
kitty litter and try to walk slowly and carefully so it doesn’t fall out the
bottom of your pantleg with every step like you’re throwing confetti. Hell, use a damned piece of fiberglass
insulation, because that is essentially what you will swear you have done to
yourself if you even consider using a paper towel in order to make it to the
pharmacy without making a scene or recreating a Slip and Slide in the Walgreens
aisle 5. Seriously. )
Now, I must admit, there has been one spoon that surfaced in
the enormous sandbox in my backyard. On
the rare chance that silverware stealing ninjas entered my house at night in
the hopes of creating a treasure hunt for household items….I’ve not
specifically narrowed down which of my children I think may have done
this. (6) I mean, I have to give my kids the benefit of
the doubt that there is a chance that it wasn’t one of them. (6)
I have also unearthed two shoes, which actually MATCHED, AND
WERE MINE, in the hosta flower bed by my back door. This, I’m praying, was the dog. Last Spring, 6 found 4 flip flops in the same
flower bed after it rained and washed away the thin layer of mulch that was
over them…with cute little paw prints leading up to the pile. J
However, since Indy is an outside dog, and weighs about 75
pounds, I am doubting her ability to be stealthy enough to enter the house,
army crawling on her belly, through the kitchen, opening cabinets and removing
stainless mixing bowls, glasses, spoons and forks, and then somehow making her
way upstairs to remove socks and then back downstairs and hitting the bathroom
on her way out to steal the last toilet paper roll. Although, odds are, I would pay good money to
see this.
Now, last week, I did walk into the bathroom only to turn
right around like a revolving door and exit said bathroom and begin to yell
across the house, ‘Does ANYONE know what happened to the toilet paper? I just put a new roll in there a couple of
hours ago…I KNOOOOOOW we didn’t use it ALL already.’ I heard a stirring from somewhere in the
house, and out came 6 from the playroom, where he had been hard at work
creating another custom lego transformer.
With him he carried a half-roll of toilet paper. From the playroom. Where he was, hopefully, playing and not
pooping. I’m not sure if he was keeping
it on standby in case he had to blow his nose, or if he was using it to attempt
to affix two items to one another because he had already found my stash of
Scotch tape and used it all. But, I’m
prayerful that this was a one-time incident, and that there isn’t a hole cut in
my subfloor which is the entry point to a secret world of two-ply in case of
Armageddon.
Sigh…..In the meantime, I guess I’m not going to keep spending
money replacing these items. I mean,
what if I’m contributing to some kind of hostile takeover that is underway by
household items everywhere? Oh, I almost forgot, we only have one steak knife, too. Seriously.
So, if I ever invite you over for dinner, it’s safe to assume that we
won’t be having soup, cereal, or anything that requires being cut. Unless we all pass the knife around the table
like a peace pipe. J
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