Monday, September 2, 2013

Hello Tunnel Vision My Old Friend

What festivities did Val have on her calendar for this Labor Day weekend? Nothing much. No annual picnic with lemonade and greased flagpoles and a baseball game between the men of Backroads and Walnut Grove. Nope.

The day dawned bright and early at 7:45. Have I mentioned that I'm a night owl? First on the agenda was laundry. I tossed in a load of The Pony's school shirts. He doesn't have a uniform. It was just the shirts that are not faded, stained, or snagged. The ones I hang around the laundry room to dry.

Did I tell you that The Pony was sick last week? He even missed last Saturday with his grandma, until he was sufficiently noncontagious by this Friday to spend the night. He dumped those togs in the laundry basket Saturday night when he returned. I tossed them in the washer this morning, including his school pants from Friday, and a couple of pairs of my granny panties and black socks. Sorry to burst your PG-13-rated thought bubbles, guys. I hate to be the one to break the news that not all of the fairer sex wear butt floss for foundation garments. Nor do we host weekly topless slumber party pillow fights, or settle our differences with tops-ripped-off, eye-clawing catfights.

Imagine my consternation when I went to retrieve those clean clothes from the washer, and found the entire lot dotted with wet tissue particles. It appears that The Pony's snotty snoot had cleared enough that he did not need to use his pocket tissues to wipe it during school hours. I have not gone through that boy's pockets since about third grade, when The Pony was not-heaven-bent on bringing home the playground 50 pebbles at a time.

I called my little Pony to the laundry room. "Grab those clothes and start peeling the tissue off them. Get the kitchen wastebasket." He did an admirable job. The only casualty was a pair of my grannies, which I dropped into the wastebasket while shaking. For some reason, The Pony found this hilarious. So I told him when he was done, he needed to get the broom and dustpan from the crack between the washer and the wall, and sweep up the tissue particles that covered the gray ceramic tile floor.

Please do not judge me when I reveal that The Pony grabbed those cleaning implements, and said, "I never knew we had this broom!" Teenage boys are simply unaware of what goes on behind the scenes to provide them with a roof under which to eat sandwiches and lay around turning their spine to jelly. I cautioned him not to shake that dustpan so the tissues flew back onto the floor. Keep it over the wastebasket. Or open the laundry room door and dump it on the porch, where it could blow away.

I called my mom for sympathy. She's usually great for making me feel better like that. I thought she might offer to drive out and pick the tissue from the clean laundry, and I could magnanimously declare, "Oh, you don't have to do that! You do so much for us already." But no. Do you know what she said?

"Why didn't you just step out on the back porch and shake them?"

What kind of a genius is SHE? All these years, hiding her MENSA card, refusing to pass down those genes to her $8 daughter. She is probably at this very moment negotiating a contract with the feds for the rights to her perpetual motion machine, and awaiting a patent on her better mousetrap.

My valedictorianship pales in comparison.

8 comments:

  1. It could have been worse, bubblegum, chapstick. At leaset he did the right thing.

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  2. OR it could have been an ink pen. THAT would have been terrible.

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  3. I forgot to say...Are you feelin' groovy today? Or did you choose to go on the 39th Street Bridge instead?

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  4. I am sure this is a very funny post, but I can not get past cat-fight

    "Uhhoohooha Cat-fight"

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  5. Regarding the cat fight - good god, I hate how women are portrayed on TV, in magazines, etc. Most of the prom dresses I see now look like something a whore would have worn in my day. And the fact that we are still the ones doing the laundry still pisses me off! I'm surprised you or your Mother don't have one of those old lint brushes. They are pretty wonderful.

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  6. I've gotten into trouble several times over the years for not thoroughly emptying my pockets when putting pants in the laundry hamper. Maybe it's a guy thing--laziness.

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  7. Linda,
    The Pony does not chew bubblegum, and has only used Chapstick a handful of times. He's a rockhound, on the lookout for gems, real or imagined. And he's very good at pitching in to clean up a mess, even when it's not of his own doing.

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    Sioux,
    Oh, the inkmanity! The Pony is very careful with the tools of his yearned-for trade. However, he prefers pecking to penning. It's a good thing laptops don't fit into pants pockets.

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    Sioux,
    Hello Madam, my old friend. I see you've come to talk to me again.

    No 39th for me. The 59th is where it's at. Much better than that bridge over troubled water. I try to stay off bridges, actually. I am a rock.

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    joeh,
    If I didn't know better, I'd say you were some kind of hipster doofus, with a living room filled with the old Merv Griffin Show set, running a corporation called Kramerica with the help of an unpaid intern.

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    knancy,
    I used to have a lint brush! I don't know what happened to it. I think it was taking up space I needed for my sweater-shaver.

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    Stephen,
    I can't pin this one on The Pony. He might have remembered, except it was his Friday pants on Saturday that he put into the clothes basket. As for you...well, you'll have to invent your own defense. I don't think that "laziness" thing is going to work out for you.

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  8. Crapola! You even slay me with S & G song titles!

    I'm melting...I'm melting...

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