Ever have a moment where you know you’ve done something wrong as a parent? You know logically you did what you could, but somehow you still end up looking around going … “Really? This is how you interpreted what i just said?”
Hypothetically one of these moments might be sitting in the bathroom. A trip you made very intentionally and with plenty of time to get everything done necessary. You look over and … zero toilet paper. Not even the last vestiges of a square glued to the cardboard hanging on for dear life. Zero spares around. Not even a perfectly clean and square piece sitting on top of the trash can.
Nothing.
And you know you specifically told your child who walked in with the ginormous package of it from the van to the house and up the stairs -the whole time trying not to lose his life by tripping over a package his nose barely peeks over on said stairs – to put it directly into your bathroom.
You managed to get all the groceries and sundries put away, and the one. single. job. you gave the kid was to put the four foot tall package of toilet paper in your bathroom. And there was even a ‘please’ tacked onto the beginning and end of the request… well, at least the first time it was uttered. By the third repeat, any and all obligation of manners is null and void.
You replay the one-sided conversation in your head. Yup. You gave clear directions… and yet… you still have to waddle your bare ass out to find where the package was placed.
Parenthood is free from such necessities as pride and self-respect sometimes.
Lo and behold, you find it. Sitting in the kids’ bathroom where there are plenty of rolls already waiting to be used because that is so completely NOT what you told the little urchin to do.
This is all hypothetical, of course. Not at all pulled from my own life experience. No no, i’m WAY too organized and on top of things to allow such a disaster to happen in my own home.
*snort*
It’s at these moments I wonder what exactly is happening inside a kid’s head to prevent the understanding of a shared spoken language. What is so almighty fascinating and riveting that a simple request from one’s mother, the same woman who painstakingly grew you in her own body for 38 weeks, withholding any and all alcoholic beverages – at a time when a person would really appreciate one or two, by the way – to make sure you are the safest you can be. What is so all-consuming that “Put the toilet paper in my bathroom, please.” Can be completely missed?
“Squirrel!”
“My butt itches.”
“What is inside my shoe?!”
Nothing that would warrant a person waddling about the house without dignity or drawers in search of a scrap of shit paper.
hypothetically speaking, of course
Sarcasmica 