Pet Peeves

Sometimes household drudgery can drive me insane, especially when the mess isn't mine. My mess is cleaner than everyone else's right?

So I walk into the boys' bathroom and this is what I see:

Am I the only one who knows how to take out the trash?

And then I open the refrigerator and find this:

Do you see what I'm talking about? Do you see the empty plate on the second shelf, placed there because Someone didn't want to at least put it in the sink?  

I have heard that if you aren't home as much, your kids have to learn to fend for themselves more. I wonder about this all the time. If I were to work full time, would the children pony up and pick up after themselves a bit more? Or would they just leave it for me to deal with when I got home from the office? 

Or maybe it's just bad karma, and all those times I left a trail of clutter through my childhood home are coming back to bite me in the bum. This makes sense. And it gives me hope, too. I will encourage my children to have lots of their own children who will make lots of messes that my kids will have to pick up. Is this what they mean when they talk about the circle of life? Anyway, it's the theory I'm clinging to. Otherwise, I'd eat a pound of licorice to cope. I've found that revenge and spite, though bad for the complexion, are easier on the figure.

Comments

[MaryB]

Did you write this post about my house? It sure sounds like the way things go around here! I also run into the same things that Shelby does...just a little tiny bit of something left because "someone" doesn't want to be the one to wash it! Makes me crazy! I've tried letting things go to see if they'll get up the guts to take care of it...I usually get to the point where I can't stand it anymore and go ahead and clean up myself! Family...you can't live with 'em, and you can't live without 'em...or can you? :p

[shelby]

uh, huh. And I find that the 'Someones' are not always so little. I think I have been dealing with this since before the pitter patter of little feet at our house. But ours is not an EMPTY plate...THAT would be too obvious that a clean up was avoided. No, I find a juice container with 3 teaspoons of juice left. Or a leftover container of lasagna with one and a half bites left. OH! Drives me nuts! And it is the redundancy that makes it worse! Like, didn't I JUST do all the laundry a week ago? Why do you people keep wearing clothes!?! I guess I signed up for this when I got married and had kids. :)

And, no, I don't find that the messes magically disappear when I go to work....and they usually lie in waiting for when I am most tired. Or maybe that's when I notice them more?