My wife and I have four boys. They are all old enough to know better, but none of them are old enough to actually take responsibility for it. Life here is a series of drama's. The sock basket was one of my favorites. After washing, drying and folding laundry for 13 1/2 hours on our day off, we would usually give up when we had nothing but socks left. There they were, a huge pile of clean socks, but our minds were so fried from sorting t-shirts and boxer shorts that the socks usually just ended up in one of the laundry baskets. Every morning the drama would start.
"Mom, I need socks."
"Mom, do I have any clean socks?"
Then my favorite question would appear. "Where is the sock basket?"
When the sock basket became a standard term, I determined that the boys would start doing their own laundry from now on. Well, one of these years that will happen, really.
Taxi service. Two of the boys have started driving but only have their permits. Of course, when they got their permits, they had many more errands that needed to be run, under the ruse of being able to be behind the wheel. My wife assured me that this was necessary in order to make them be better drivers. So, after many white knuckle rides and near misses, I can now sit in the passenger seat of the car without gripping the dash so hard that it leaves marks. We do know that revenge will be sweet, when in a couple weeks they will both have their actual licenses, and they will soon tire of running to the store for milk, hamburger, and toilet paper.
That brings up another household drama. Toilet paper. Sure, with 6 people in the house, you are going to go through a lot, but there seems to be a a problem with notifying those that need to know (the parents with the jobs and checkbook) that the last sheet of paper out of the 96 roll package of super soft charmin has been used. Enough said.
Money. Of course there is the money drama. Money for school lunch, money for gum, money for pop, money for the movies, and of course, money for Taco Bell. What would we do without this Mexican extravaganza? This is a favorite place of 2 of the boys, but it cannot be called "fast food". I have never seen anyone special order a 99 cent burrito, but believe me it can be done. The most amazing thing is that I always know if there has been a trip to Taco Bell. The way I can tell is the half eaten burrito in the door of the refrigerator. One of the boys, for some odd reason, no matter how many burritos they get, cannot quite finish them all. There is always that 49 1/2 cents worth of burrito waiting to be thrown away a week later. I am convinced that if they were starving, and had not eaten for a week, and a Taco Bell burrito was offered, it would be eaten ravenously until half consumed. They would then stop and proclaim "I'm full. I think I'll save this for later."
I think I will start putting these half eaten bean creations in the freezer and bring them out at Thanksgiving. I can't wait to see the looks on their faces!
