Victory....For a Moment

When T and I returned from our mini-vacation, the house was clean.

No, let me say that again, so you can genuinely understand....

The house? It was CLEAN.

No dishes, no laundry, no random detritus on the floor. No pop cans, no take out bins, no garbage. (Even the recycling went out!!!)

We were gone for four days. FOUR DAYS.

I could not leave for more than three hours without returning to a Hoover-ville prior to this.

My joy--It was epic. I gushed, I think, my thanks at the boys. My pride, my pleasure at knowing that they were capable....and all that needed to happen to make sure those abilities would continue to be used is the threat of my leaving....for good. You see, this is how I struck the fear of filth into the boys--I told them I would move out. That I didn't pay more than they do every month to be a maid servant--to clean, and cook, and launder, and clean, all the while they all sit and play video games at full volume.

This fear seems to have been a great motivator for them. They want me to stay, they want me to be happy, they enjoy my company, and most of all--I give good advice. (So they say. They could be buttering me up for all I know.)

Anyway.

Today, I had laundry to do. T has to work essentially every day for the rest of this month, and he needs his work clothes clean, and so on.

So I gathered the laundry, my heart aflutter with the knowledge that the only laundry I needed to do belonged to me or someone who sleeps with me every night. Took it to the garage, sorted it. Looked in the washing machine.

And this is where things went wrong.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were so confused by what was before you that your mind went blank for a few moments? Where you needed a mental "do-over" to make sure that what you thought you were seeing was not, in fact, what was actually the reality of the situation?

It was kind of like that.

So I had my mental do-over, and nothing changed. I could only come to one determination as to what was in the washing machine.

I went directly into the house, and asked J if he could assist me in the garage.

J came out, and I asked him, "J, where is the laundry soap scoop?"

He responded, "I don't know, I never found it."

"How did you get the soap in the machine?"

"Just picked up the box and poured it in."

I looked at him, I looked at my Cost*co sized 200 load box of Gain. I looked into the washing machine.

"J, is that why there is powdered soap in every orifice of the machine?"

"I guess I just have bad aim." He smiled, and went back into the house.

I followed him, got a 1/8th teaspoon out of the drawer, and began the arduous task of scraping laundry soap, now the consistency of cement, out of the fabric softener dispenser, bleach dispenser, hinges of the lid....the whole upper-level of the machine.

Several minutes, a few cups of hot water and a salad of curse words later, I was ready to unplug the holes in the agitator where the fabric softener cascades into the rinse water, and begin digging for the soap scoop throughout the entire laundry area. (It was behind the dryer. I don't want to know.)

Needless to say, I fixed everything. It was fine.

It was, I can only assume, like when your children make you breakfast in bed and pour coffee down the hall rug, the comforter, your foot....but you smile and thank them. You understand that the intentions were good, that they did this for you out of love, and simply because they don't have the adult thinking skills that tell them that blindly shaking four pounds of laundry soap towards the washing machine and calling it good is not the best idea....you can't be mad. You can't chastise good intentions.

But you can spend thirty minutes cleaning it up.