(Photo Credits: Photo Pin)
Dear Family,
Consider this letter to be your official notification that I have gone on strike!! You cannot talk me out of it, and I will no longer be fielding any kind of negotiations. This is not up for debate. A bottle of wine and cookie dough will not sway me (this time).
First, please understand how much I love you and appreciate you. Especially all your contributions to the laundry pile (yes, the one up to my knees) and the overflowing sink with dirty dishes. I do love to trip over the shoes in the hallway and am always delighted to see another pair of smelly brown socks on the dining room table. (?? really??) I also know how difficult it is to find a roll of toilet paper and actually do the mechanics of taking the old roll off and putting the new one on. I would assume it takes a college degree to learn how to master such a feat, but your father has his Masters degree and still hasn’t figured it out either. Can we also all agree that the collection of old razors and empty bottles of shampoo in the shower are unnecessary? If we threw them out when they were old, (gasp) then we may not have that rust in the corners.
When you see me banging my head against the wall and talking to myself you shouldn’t be alarmed (this time).
I have decided that it is time to break the news, no matter how difficult this may seem to digest, and you may need to sit down. Here are the hard truths you will need to know during my strike.
There is NO laundry fairy, sock magician (that produces clean matching socks on demand)… nor elves that do the dishes and clean the kitchen at night. Nope…. distressing as it may be, you are going to have to buck up and (ewww) touch a wet dirty dish. Oh my. Please don’t faint my dear princess, I will provide you with a list of therapists you can call or I’m sure you can reach out to Oprah… she seems to care about these things. When you storm about in the morning wondering where all your pony tail holders are, check out the shower floor… or bathroom floor … or the hallway… or the car floor… it’s amazing that the several boxes I have bought to store all these wonderful elastics are empty. Apparently there isn’t a pony tail holder fairy either.
You also do not NEED to use two clean towels every time you shower. They do not pick themselves up off the floor each and every day, and you are not that dirty. You can use a towel twice. (Brock and Dan…. you ARE that dirty, please only use a towel once) If you think the dog pee’d in your room, you are probably right since you didn’t let him out. When I tell you to throw your candy wrappers and popsicle sticks in the trash it isn’t meant to make you sweat and burn calories. It’s so the ant farm you seem to be attracting stays outside where they belong.
To my son, how I love your collections, but you are not a hoarder. We are not on a television special detailing all the junk you manage to drag home and clutter up your room with. I have been in there and wonder how many families you actually have living in that space to make such an incredible mess in such a short amount of time. Do you want rats and cockroaches as pets? The empty and stale bags of chips I found are going to bring them my friend.
I’ve always considered you an optimist because when you touch a hot pot (and I’ve already told you it’s hot) you still do it. It’s my little way of not calling you other names I suppose. Anyway… just because you are an optimist does not mean EVERY single morning when you are running out the door I will have a fresh pair of socks and your shoes in my hands!! Why you expect me to wiggle my nose and produce a clean pair of socks is beyond me. Have you NOT learned??? May I also mention that when we get all the way to school in the morning and you realize you FORGOT your shoes and other cars begin honking behind us, it is NOT my fault. Seriously… why oh why is it so hard to remember your shoes? On another note, just because you found a bag of rubber bands does not make you the master of booby traps, and stringing them together to trip up your sister if she manages to get thru your door is plain ridiculous. I would also like to add that swinging a bouncy ball off fishing line did not distract me when you shot exploding poppers at my feet with your blow gun. Yes… I see you on the roof in your camo gear. Now get down and clean your room!
Now, my dear and loving husband. I would just like to ask a simple question. What exactly, (ok, not exactly) but, what to the best of your knowledge, was I wearing this morning? Do you think this is a trick question? It may be, so consider your answer carefully. Wait, let me help you out by phrasing this question differently… when you got up this morning, left your towel on the floor, tooth paste in the sink, crumbs on the counter, coffee cup and creamer on the table, greasy spatula and pan on the stove with pancake batter splashed about. Did I, (please think back and answer carefully) have on a cute black dress with white apron that made you think that I was a maid???? Or was I wearing pj’s, running around searching for cheerleading uniform parts and lost shoes? Please help me out here. I’m just wondering how I must have looked this morning, because I have checked myself out in the mirror and see no resemblance to the maid uniform you must have hallucinated. What kind of mind altering drug ARE you putting in that coffee??!!!
Let me also add, I LOVE the wonderful and adorable bulldog puppy you bought us. Yes, he’s wonderful. Why you wanted the biggest and most stubborn male is beyond me, but I wanted you to have your pick. So when you tell me our 60lb, 4 month old puppy with feet bigger than mine, doesn’t know his own strength… let me assure you, he does! After he learned how to open the screen doors, I learned to lock them. When he backed up a good 10 feet, I saw him estimating strength and velocity before he plowed straight ahead and took out the entire screen door. Yes… he does know his own strength. So now that the glass doors have to remain shut to keep the little adorable mess out back, they are yours to clean. He loves to press his slobbery muzzle up against the glass and give the most pathetic look he can muster. He then SLIMES the entire door just to get my attention. That slime is now yours to windex off.
So dear family, now that I have gotten maybe a moment of your attention, please understand that I am on a full blown strike and will not locate lost possessions, break up arguments, help with home work, do laundry, dishes, floors, bathrooms, or anything else. You three need to pull together and figure out a plan of responsibilities. When you have it all put together and it is a working household again, please call me… and I will come back with all the electronics, chargers and remote controls.
I love you with all my heart and grey hairs,
Mom