SavageTimes

There are pink blobs that look suspiciously like human flesh congealing in my copper sink.  I am both grossed out and fascinated.  Neither of the children appear to be missing chunks of flesh.  I suppose it could be from a friend (one of my daughter’s, definitely; son has none, he assures me, although whether to exact pity from me or to ward off that look in my eye he recognizes as ‘you need social time’ IDK), but no friends have been here for a few days so I’d think some mother would notice.  Certainly other mothers are more on top of things then me.

I poke at the “flesh.”  It dissolves under my prodding and leaves a smear of pink on my fingertip.  I taste it.

Oh, don’t judge; my kids are 15 and 11; even if it is flesh, I’m sure I’ve tasted/eaten worse, or at the very least, as bad. Don’t pretend none of you ever got sprayed in the face when you were talking by your infant son who joyfully urinated every single time you changed his diaper.  My own brother did that to me when I was six.

The suspicious pink tastes like strawberries.

“GIRLLLLLL!” I call for my daughter.

It’s July.  They’ve been out of school for 4 1/2 weeks.  Their names ceased to matter sometime after Week Three.

“Yes, Mommy?” she says in her suspiciously ‘I Am a Perfect Child’ voice.

“What were you doing with the strawberries?”

“Ohhhh….making smoothies,” she says in that same sticky sweet voice.  I would buy it completely if I weren’t her mother and also heard her mouthing off to me like a 37 year old waitress at a truck stop only fifteen minutes before. Not that I wonder for a second where she gets her mouth from.

“You said I should make my own lunch,” she said.  “You even got out the blender for me.  Remember?”

I do.  It was yesterday, and after I had various conversations with both of them in which I used various obscenities as nouns, verbs, pronouns, and adjectives interchangeably, I hid in my room for much of the day and watched ‘Crossing Jordan’ reruns.  I used to love that show. Now, with fresh eyes as a mother of a teenager and a pre-teen, I realize how much my beloved Jordan, Nigel, Bug, Lily and Macy created their own drama and continually went back for more.

The show now makes me feel so much better about my own life.

At least, until I find alleged bits of flesh shining prettily against my copper sink.

But hey, GirlChild tried something new. That’s fabulous!  She can add smoothies to her budding kitchen skills.  She also does a darn good job cleaning up the kitchen, as a general rule.  I’m sure the smoothie/flesh was just overlooked.

The BoyChild, however, is another issue.

“Teenager!” I screech own the stairs.

In the second of my double copper sinks is a pile of rice.  Not, by the way, in the sink with the disposal.

“I’m sorrrryyyyyy,” Teenager says after climbing the stairs from his lair like Rip Van Wrinkle after being awoken.  He happily does any and every chore I give him, but otherwise he doesn’t leave his lair very much.  It’s difficult being 15, for some more than others.  I was 15 once.  It wasn’t easy. Still.

“I forgggottttt, OK?” Teenager says.  “I can’t be expected to remember these things!  How am I supposed to tell the difference?  They’re both sinks.  They both look the same.”

We’ve gone over this.  And over this and over this and over this.  I don’t know how many more &*$@*%( times I can explain to my 15 year old, who is not an idiot, the difference between right and left.  He was doing OK for awhile.  Then he forgot again, I guess.  He did ask me to put a sign above the sinks, like I placed on the piano so my daughter could find Middle C.  I protested: he knows major specific details and statistics about every single  &*$@*%( war ever fought on this planet.  He is teaching himself &*$@*%( Japanese and French.  He remembers quotes from movies we haven’t seen in five &*$@*%( years.  And he can’t tell the &*$@*%( difference between the &*$@*%( sink with the &*$@*%( disposal and the &*$@*%( sink with just the &*$@*%( drain?

Apparently &*$@*%( not.

&*$@*%(

Off the wagon again.

I breathe.  I smile.  We go over it again.  He cleans the rice out of the sink for me and plops it in the disposal side.  He promises to remember.  I smile some more and pat him on the back.

I’m totally making a &*$@*%( sign.