Friday, September 24, 2010

Let no good deed go unpunished ~~ Sea Monkeys Need to Eat too!

Sometime earlier in the week I had had enough of walking past the kids room and seeing a general mess directly inside the door. The weird thing is that if you actually walked INTO the room and turned the corner, it was pretty neat.
But the bookcase next to the door had lots of stuff besides books piled on top of and in front of it.

So in an effort to neaten up my view I removed a shirt, a pair of underwear, 2 empty ziploc bags, a tissue that somehow missed the trashcan, 10 lego pieces waiting for someone (me) to step on them barefoot, a handful of silly bands and a small gift bag leftover from Katherine's birthday party that upon inspection appeared to contain nothing.

I distributed the items into their appropriate location including the trash into the trash can.

Fast forward to yesterday evening and the commencement of the bedtime ritual which that night included feeding the ever expanding Sea Monkey population. (Mommy, why are those Sea Monkeys stuck together... go ask your father dear...)

Katherine announced she could not find the Sea Monkey food even though she claimed not to have moved it. Jeff sent her back into her room assuring her neither of us had touched it.  (Famous last words)

5 minutes later she was still looking and dad was not happy that things were taking so long.

"MEL!! Did you see a small pink bag Katherine says she left on the bookcase that had the Sea Monkey food in it?"

(Does throwing it out count?)

"Well..... I think I might have seen a bag, but there was nothing in it."

"There was a packet of Sea Monkey food in it.... what did you do with it?"

(ARGH!!!)

"I might have thrown it out....."

"You're kidding!!! Well go get it from the kitchen will you?"

(Sure, I'd love to except I just threw the kitchen trash bag out....and it might not even be in that bag..... how many are out in the can by now?)

***SIGH***
"Lemme check."

Out I went into the night equipped with a flashlight and the creeps from having to be out there alone with the full moon shining overhead.

I had to go through 3 bags of kitchen trash which contained eggshells from Sunday, leftover spaghetti from Monday, half a roll of paper towels that were used to sop up a juice spill on Tuesday, pizza crusts, coffee grounds, a bag of lettuce that had seen better days, avocado peels, broccoli and asparagus ends, a couple of sweet potatoes that had sprouted and developed soft spots and who knows what else.

All I can say is none of it smelled good. And I had to make 2 passes to find the dang thing which turned out to be in the first bag I opened but somehow overlooked the first time through.

I was rather cross (and smelly) at the whole situation and tried to use it as a lesson to the children that they should not clutter everything up because this can happen with more important things than Sea Monkey food.

Jeffrey was quick to point out that since the Sea Monkeys could not eat anything BUT Sea Monkey food there probably wasn't anything in THEIR world as important as that.

I think the whole point was lost on him.

Do you remember these ads on the back of comic books from years ago?
My dad finally let me get some but my mother wouldn't let them stay in the house because she was convinced they were nothing more than a bowl full of worms...



But what I TRULY wanted a kid was either one of these.... I could never get up the courage to order either because I was sure my mom would have had a coniption fit if either showed up in the mail... but I cut the ads out and kept them in my drawer just in case I ever lost my mind and decided to do it anyway.