The Shirt

My house has two entrances. It has a big front double door entrance that I decorate all nicely for special occasions and it also has a smaller side entrance that the kids use when they come home from school.

On Friday, when my son came home from school he dropped his uniform shirt in a little white sweaty ball on the staircase located beside the back door. It's still there. Today is Tuesday.

This is not a new behavior. When my kids come home from school they usually use this back entrance to the house and they have always dropped everything in the back hallway. There is a large closet in the hallway and time and time again I have asked them to turn around, open the closet door and put their things in the closet. They don't do it.

I've pleaded. I've yelled. I've threatened. Nothing I do will convince my kids to put their stuff away. Anyone coming in to visit through our back door has to climb over my kid's musical instruments, back packs, gym clothes, coats, shoes and assorted art projects to get in the house. It drives me crazy.

This past weekend after complaining about it again (and again and again) my children slowly cleared their stuff out of the back hallway. Everything that is except for the sweaty white shirt ball.

Now I have a few options. I can ask my son politely once again to put the shirt in the laundry. He will probably just as politely agree and then will completely forget about my request the moment I leave the room.

I can try and decorate the back hallway around the shirt, maybe by putting a plant or something over it.

I can put the shirt in the laundry myself.

Not.

I am tired of being my families slave. My son is old enough to put his own darn shirt in the laundry. He should not have to be reminded to clean up after himself NUMEROUS times. This damn shirt is becoming a symbol of one of the things I hate about being a mother - I am becoming a nag.

I don't want to be a nag but I also don't think I should have to put the damn shirt in the laundry. But I also don't want dirty clothes lying all over my house.

So now what happens?

Probably, I will leave the shirt on the stairs for a few more days and be short tempered with my son. I will growl and snap at him for small little infractions that I would normally let slide. I will however be as nice as pie to everyone else.

My son will then probably be confused and slightly unhappy and not understand why the most important woman in his life is mad at him. He will probably turn to the TV and his (root) beer for comfort.

After a few days of this I will then pick up the shirt off the back staircase and wave it in my son's face while I shriek at him in a very high decibel tone about how he and not I should be putting the darn thing in the laundry. An hour later we will both have forgotten the whole thing.

My little boy is going to be completely ready for marriage.

Comments

[Julianne]

You're just doing your part to prepare your son for marriage.

I often wonder why passive-aggression seems to be my preferred method to accomplish things when, in reality, it accomplishes nothing.

[madmad]

Sounds just like my house! Glad to know I'm not alone in finding a trail of clothing and kid crap through the house... Thanks for coming by my blog and giving me a chance to come by here - very funny stuff!

[Paula]

I'm getting a little concerned at how your life is mirroring mine. The bane of my existence this weekend was a school sweater draped over the stairway post (is it something about the uniforms at 'our' school?) I think the clinical term for the kids is selective attention disorder. But just TRY to sneak your daughter's homemade brownies without getting noticed....

[Marie]

I'd throw it away. :P