Breakthrough

I feel like a broken record.

"I really don't want to spend the very little free time I have cleaning up after you guys."

"You know it really pisses me off when I come home from having worked all day, and the house is trashed."

"Could you please pick up after yourselves?"

"How many times have you walked by this in the last week? Why couldn't you just pick it up on your way?!"

So last night, because of the mountain of laundry to be folded and because I really wanted to watch the movie Blind Side and because I knew that I would not be home on Tuesday night to pick up and because I didn't feel like coming home on Wednesday and having a major melt down before yoga, I instituted Family clean up time. Think of it sort of like Martial Law and I am the Army. The usual drill involves me cleaning up the kitchen and all the random crap they leave laying around the house while everyone else (by 'everyone' I mean Micha and Mumbles) watches TV, plays video games, dinks around on the computer or texts their friends. This routine makes me crazy. Especially when this routine takes place the same day as or the day immediately following a day when I've spent the majority of the day cleaning/working. Seriously, our house does not stay picked up for more than 30 minutes. The kitchen table only stays cleared off for about 5 minutes and the sink never, NEVER does not have a dirty dish in it. On any given day you can walk into my house and find: hats, shoes, tools, pens, keys, computers, phones, recycling, dirty socks, food containers/wrappers, empty toilet paper rolls and dirty dishes. All of which have an appropriate place but none of which are in said place. Am I a bit neurotic about the housekeeping? Yes. Would I be willing to let certain rooms, Mumbles' bedroom for example, go in an effort to keep the peace? Yes, if it weren't for my fear that they will become a bio-hazard. Last summer, we (actually Lily the Destroyer) found a half eaten bologna sandwich under Mumbles' bed. Under her bed! For the record, I don't buy bologna, that was all Micha. The mere fact that it was a bologna sandwich was gut wrenching enough. My child has always been a bit of a hoarder and not a particularly neat one but Micha was not like this when I met him. When I met Micha in college he had a male roommate and it was pretty much a guarantee that the common areas where going to be trashed, but Micha's bedroom and bathroom were always clean, immaculate even. When he moved and had a female roommate, he was still the neater of the two, even cleaning the rest of the apartment when he knew I was coming to visit. When he lived on his own, his apartment wasn't the nicest but it was neat. So what the eff happened? Where are the freakin' sparkling clean bathroom countertops and toilet seats you can eat off? My countertops are covered with shaving gunk and some days I'm not certain the toilet is fit to be shit in! WTF?!?

Anyway, back to last night. I told everyone during dinner that I had laundry to work on and I wanted everyone to pitch in and help out so we could watch the movie. Micha went down to the basement to play Call of Duty and Mumbles joined him after she put the dishes in the dishwasher and ran it. Not quite the mark I was hoping to hit but rather than get mad and start yelling, (alright I yelled a little because I hate Call of Duty) I gave them all marching orders. The pile of shit that's been on the landing for two weeks, Micha, take it to the garage. Mumbles, the dishes in the sink have your name written all over them. Empty all the trashes. Take the recycling out. Pick up your hat. Seriously, I should've been in the military. I helped out too and in no time the house was picked up. I said "I like family clean up time! We're going to start doing this all the time!" The reaction I got was a little like the reaction Micheal whatshisface from Seinfeld got when he 'heckled' a heckler. Which leads me to this conclusion: my family likes it when I get pissed and yell at them. They thinks it's hilarious when I swear and stomp around. It keeps them in stitches when I shout that I'm moving out and I'm not taking dogs, or kids, or cats or Spousal Equivalents with me, that way they can just go right on ahead and live like a bunch of slobs. All this time I've been concerned about trying to be a more patient Mom and Spousal Equivalent and what I really need to be better at my roles is a mega-phone and maybe a cattle prod.

One of my bossy, but classy idols, Katherine Hepburn.