This week’s splendid mess is brought to you by the letter “C” for CRAP and the number “3” for the amount of children that claim they didn’t create this spill.  As per the standard operating procedure of most households, these things just happen miraculously on their own.  If anything, it is my fault for bothering to ask who might have done it.  The logical plan is to make them clean it up together but let’s be realistic for a minute; three teenagers cleaning up a concentrated, slick of detergent is sure to be smeared every which way with an entire roll of paper towels (they would never use the towels already sitting right there in front of them) and what will remain is a slippery residue that of all people, I will fall and break my head on the very next time I go in there with an armful of laundry.  So efficiently and for the sake of safety, I get to work myself, strategically using dark towels, white towels and other laundry to soak up the detergent.  Now I can rotate the appropriate detergent soaked laundry in the washing machine to clean the rest of the loads of laundry waiting for me in the hall.  BRILLIANT – which makes this situation a bit less aggravating.  What does still aggravate me is that every time I walk into the laundry room now, there is a stream of blue tears dripping from the rubber seal inside the door of the dryer going down the front to the tile floor.  I open the door, wipe all the way around it again using a damp cloth and yet, a day later, still dripping.  Not quite as thrilling as the weeping Mary statue in Israel that 1,000’s of people flock to, though I do think of that statue every time I see that blue tear weeping down the front.  My dryer is crying as if sympathizing (yep, I am claiming my dryer feels sorry for me – it’s been a long day, don’t judge me on this one)

As my kids get older I allow myself to believe we have covered every type of mishap short of burning the house down, but no – there is still something new at every turn.  I received the shout out from Jackie “Mom, you might want to see this”, which I knew for sure by her tone and urgency, that I was NOT going to want to see whatever she was referring to on this fine day.  When I mustered the courage to go downstairs and see exactly what the disturbance was, it reminded me of an incident when Corbin and Casey were little and had locked me out of the laundry room as you can read in my yet to be published book, chapter 5 “Brothers – Tell Me if This Hurts?”:

“Corbin and Casey have fashioned themselves as quite the industrious young men through the years.   At the tender age of 3 and 4 ½ they tried their hand at car detailing which meant washing my car while I was making them lunch.  I have found that most of their plans are launched and promptly executed in the time it takes me to make lunch.  Unfortunately they washed the car while it was in the garage but they sure beamed with pride as they enthusiastically told me about their big surprise.  They tried to vacuum it too but Corbin can’t use an appliance without taking it apart first, after getting the entire contents of the vacuum emptied all over the wet garage and up the side of the freshly washed van he could not manage to get the top back on and had to forgo the rest of the job.

I was learning fast to chase down silence.  The day they decided to help with laundry was really a sight.  They were always slightly ahead of my learning curve, so as I went looking for the source of trouble I was stopped momentarily for they had locked the laundry room door to delay my efforts.  I could hear but not see them, and since the sounds were alarming I did not have the time to run up the stairs for what would become my secret weapon, the butter knife.  This works swiftly at unlocking doors and should be with me always.  In the interest of time on this occasion I had to pound on the door, I knew the washing machine was on and the lid was up because it was loud, not muffled as it would be if I was washing a load of clothes.  There was all kinds of fun going on inside, up until I pounded on the door.  Then there was swishing and scurrying, slipping about and sliding and I could hear Corbin saying “Uh –oh, come on Casey; just a minute momma”!   I banged again.  This was taking a lot longer than it ought to since the washing machine was less than a step from the doorknob.  The rattling of the door, several failed attempts from their little fingers trying to unlock the door and then it opened with 2 little boys standing there, eyes wide, looking innocent as if nothing had been going on in there, however the wet legs with bubbles all up and down their bodies mixed with the dirt from their morning of play in the backyard indicated otherwise. They had taken a grand ride in the spin cycle of the washing machine and they were prepared to plead the fifth if it came to that.  All the evidence was there in front of my face and yet they were comfortable to make their plea of not guilty.  I am raising liars!  Not just a fib here and there, they can look me right in the face and lie without hesitation or any presence of guilt.  It is more than disturbing to know this is what I am up against.”

……and 12 years later, not too much has changed.  I will count my blessings that it was only a bottle of Tide this go around. Good night moon!