Hogs

Yesterday we got a gigantic cabinet from Mom's house (Upcoming-Marriage Liquidation Sale! Everything! Must! Go!) that is about 400 years old and held our stereo (with turntable!) when I was a kid and probably held the Ark of the Covenant before that. I put it in Ab's room to hold her radio (karaoke machine entirely too big, had to rearrange a few things) and her Littlest Pet Shop menagerie, eventually a whole lot of dust and of course, junk that is only important to the pre-teen set.

First off, let me just say that my eldest child is a slob. I mean, a t-total, downright slob. Even though the call had gone out just about 30 minutes earlier for all errant socks and underwear in need of bleaching, we found - KID YOU NOT - 13 white socks, two pair of underwear AND 7 toe socks that should've gone in the winter clothes when I put them up WEEKS ago. Where did we find them? A few were in her bathroom floor, but most of the mysterious reappearing socks were found under her bookcase, one in the floor vent (how it got there without her INTENTIONALLY STUFFING IT THERE I'll never know) and one in a pencil box IN HER DESK. Do you sense my frustration? Is it coming through clear enough with the gratuitous capitalization? Because I don't think I can adequately convey to you the anger that boiled up within me as the pile of socks grew and grew. I had to buy her new socks a few weeks ago because she didn't even have enough to get her through a week. Oh, but now she has plenty, trust me.

And then, after the socks were all taken care of I found a dirty spoon that had like, four year old chocolate pudding dried on it on top of some books in her bookshelf, a half-eaten jumbo sized Laffy Taffy (which the orthodontist barred her from eating), a fruit snack that had teeth marks in it (hopefully human, but in that room it could be rodent) and roughly 359 snotty kleenxes from when she had a cold a few weeks ago - A FEW WEEKS AGO!!

Now, constant reader, I have admitted here many times that housework is not my forte, nor is it even something I enjoy doing, but I am not a slob. I am a clutterer, yes, but I have never NEVER left a spoon in my nightstand drawer for weeks on end. I may have a messy desk, but I can put a snot-filled kleenex in the nearest trashcan even when I'm sick.

I guess what I'm trying to say is - she must've gotten it from her father. Yes, her father, the man who, when the call goes out for socks and underwear, can produce at least four pair of socks and never kick the footrest down on the recliner. He also hoardes wrappers and notebooks with one page left in them, which are stored right next to the pile of toenail clippings on the end table next to his recliner. I bought him a pretty cloth-covered basket (Oops, did I say "pretty?" I mean, manly) and presented it to him for Father's Day last year just chock full of beef jerky, peanuts, Pringles, etc. in sincere hopes that he would take the freakin' hint and keep his crap together in some kind of order. The other day I was going through the living room, picking up and straightening up and found -- IN HIS SNACK BASKET -- a pair of his black work socks, a roll of toilet paper, a screwdriver and a tile cutter. We haven't had any tile to cut in this house EVER. And a box of kleenex was sitting on the table next to his chair, so why the toilet paper?

If you ever come to my house and my husband offers you a snack from the basket next to his chair, politely decline. Unless, of course, you're totally okay with eating a Slim Jim that's been nestled next to a sock for God knows how long. Instead, choose something from my neatly organized and alphabetized pantry. Just sayin'.