I have been fairly lucky in that I've been able to maintain quite a bit
of control in a dominantly male household. Here ... the fish are even
male. Despite it all, kids, husband, animals ... all male, I keep a
very clean house and without having to play maid to the boys. They have
always been very clean. It's ironic to me that I used to dream about my
two boys growing up so that I wouldn't have to worry about things at
all anymore like ... dirt. Today, Chet is an adult and Sean is a young
man, yet I have more struggles than I ever have had before concerning
house cleaning issues. It just boggles my mind. I've never had to tell
them to keep the bathroom clean before. It was understood how it should
be kept, and the reprocussions of not doing that were understood even
better. Now it's a daily struggle and it's gross. Today, I cornered my
nearly six foot string bean of a son, grabbed him by his boney-butt
wrist, and drug him into the bathroom along with a bottle of windex
and a roll of paper towels. He cleaned it for me without complaint.
However, upon inspection, I was displeased. So I grabbed his other
boney-butt wrist and drug him back into the bathroom. I had him redo
the entire thing. That's how it goes with Hitler ...er me, if you don't
do it right, you have to redo the entire thing. This almost always
prevents me from having to do what I just had to do. I completed my
second inspection as he stood there biting his nails (nasty habit). I
was very pleased and finished up by opening up the cabinets beneath
the sink and ... it was indescribable. My eyes narrowed as I tried to
quickly think up punishments for him that would equal the level of
"pissiness" that I was feeling just then. Before I spoke with wide
innocent eyes, he held up his hands and he said, "Mom ... it was the
ferrets. I swear. Quit lookin' at me like that. It was!"

My ferrets are BORING. Remember that conversation? Boring. They don't
"do cabinets". Ransacking is the likes of the Downs kids. Now there's a
bunch of hooligans for ya if I ever did see 'em. But the Downs crew had
not visited for quite a while. "Renee's kids magically teleported here
with help from FLO and did this, is that what you are saying?"

He quickly answered, "Well, no ...but.."

"Our ferret's ate their Wheaties today and pumped up their IQ twenty
points today is that it?"

"Mom! I"m serious! The ferrets must have..." I quickly shot my finger
up to his lips to hush him. "Shhh!" Then I looked at the floor all
around around me. "There are donuts sleeping here". And I exited the
room leaving Chet to wonder if I needed to up my meds. As well as he
should. Our bathroom is now sparkling.

The audacity of it all, to blame those sweet fuzzies.  And talk about 
boring, it just NOW occured to him that he could have been blaming the 
ferrets for messes???  Are you freakin' kidding me?  Omg...

Wolfy

[Posted in FML 5721]