It Takes a Tantrum

My kids have no idea how good they have it.

I used to hate Saturday mornings. All the other kids in my neighborhood seemed to roam free, while my siblings and I were chained to the vacuum cleaner and a can of Lemon Pledge. We worked for hours and hours and it was never done. I'm sure my mother would tell you the same thing, only from her point of view we probably worked on the exact same job for hours, while from my view we went through lists and lists.

My mother didn't believe in feather dusters. Nor did she believe in toilet brushes. We cleaned everything with rags. They were clean rags - but still. I can remember hunting through the rag bag, wondering which little eight inch square of ripped up towel I was going to put through the hellish experience of being sprinkled with the Comet cleanser and shoved into the icy, disgusting toilet water. I mean, I always flushed about 400 times first. So it wasn't disgusting like that. It's just inherently a gross thing to do.


I actually looked forward to Mondays. I mean, I had to go to school, but at least no one made me shove my hand in a toilet. Well, usually.

Anyway, that brings me to cleaning chores at my house now. Here I post a rotating job list on Mondays with 6 jobs per person. You're supposed to do them one per day, but normally, they get put off. And put off. And put off.

Seriously I can't see any reason for that kind of procrastination. It's not like they have to shove their hands into the toilet water, get their heads down close enough to inspect the inside of the rim, and smell whether it is actually clean. (Wow, do I have some issues here, or what?) I have purchased perfectly serviceable toilet brushes so that they can clean from an arm and a half's length. I think of it as my little gift to them - -to avoid putting anyone through that kind of life-altering trauma.

(Hey, I figure the cost of the toilet brushes will be offset by the one less thing to discuss when they start their inevitable my-mom-ruined-my-life therapy sessions.)

Occasionally, as a Saturday afternoon marches on, and my little would-be-maid-service keeps finding reasons to put off their work, I get a little antsy. And then I get crabby, and from there it goes into a full-on melt down. And people, once THAT launch sequence has been activated, there's just no way to turn the war missile around. It has to go all the way through to its inevitable conclusion.

An epic melt down like this isn't pretty. It includes muttering, stomping, lecturing, and ranting. It rarely includes yelling - unless you count the "GET BACK DOWN HERE UNTIL WE ARE DONE!!" from the bottom of the stairs. It also includes demanding that all electronics are off until all job lists - plus a few extra jobs- are done. And we're not done till I say we're done.

And I'm telling ya, once the inevitable starts, there is NO MERCY.

You'd think that people would kinda catch on to the fact that doing the work on time in the first place diffuses the whole situation.... And sometimes it seems like they do. Sometimes we go weeks at a time with no melt-down tantrum. But just when you think they've got it figured out, the whole thing happens again. Kinda like the rabbits in the front yard vs the catch and release trap The Brain keeps setting for them. You wonder when they're going to figure it out. But they don't.

Yeah.



I guess we might as well stop buying the toilet brushes and save our money. Turns out they're probably going to need more therapy than I originally thought.