Before my wife went back to work full-time, I had a much simpler view of how the house operated. Every morning I’d skip out the door to go to the office, have a glorious day of dealing with grown-up problems, and when the evening came, I’d come home to throw out all of the trash everyone left for me to pick up. Scooping up fruit snack wrappers, Gatorade bottles, and ripped up pieces of paper everywhere, I’d wonder if my wife was trying to send me a message. Or if she was even home. And perhaps I may have even muttered a few things under my breath too, wondering why it was so hard for these people to clean up after themselves. What exactly goes on here all day? For the last year, I’ve been finding out.
Back when my wife made the decision to reenter the workforce, I was excited for her, but upon reflection, I’m beginning to wonder if she is some kind of magical witch with the ability to see into the future. Because the timing of this thing is just too coincidental. How could it be that the very moment she goes back to work, covid just happens to strike, and the kids get sent home on a permanent vacation? No, no, no, I don’t think so. That’s more than coincidental. That’s downright eerie.
Consider this: the whole world has just gone remote, shutting it all down, taking advantage of the workplace concepts that have been going on for the better part of a decade. I even know doctors who went remote, and last I checked, they are pretty important to see in person when push comes to shove. But my wife, incredible wielder of magic that she is, happened to get hired by the one company left in the entire world that refuses to give up the old ways. They are standing tough as the last bastion of traditional work enforcement, requiring all new employees to be in the office every day of the week, even in the face of a global pandemic. What are the chances? Now I’m stuck holding the bag, just because I can work from home? Uh-uh. No sir. All. Too. Convenient. What a lucky girl.
But Matt, you say, isn’t that terrible luck to go into the office every day in the face of a pandemic? And I will tell you, yes, you’re absolutely right — terrible luck for me! Have you tried living with your kids 24/7? You might as well be living with a bunch of raccoons. I didn’t know people lived like this. As covid winds down, if you’re looking to nanny, there should be plenty of job opportunities for you because parents are going to be running for the hills. Call me if you’re looking for a job. I’ll give you everything I have.
Recounting Battles Lost…
On my wife’s first day of work, as she readied herself to leave by giving me seven hundred tasks I would never be able to remember, it started to dawn on me that this was actually happening. I was being left alone. With them. As she spoke I kept nodding my head, pretending I had everything under control, but all I could concentrate on was this single sock sitting on the kitchen island. She kept telling me about Google classroom passwords, and things I was supposed to register the kids for, but all I kept thinking was, why the hell is there one sock on the kitchen island? Just one sock. Not two. One. As if two would make more sense. My brain couldn’t compute. I’m pretty sure I blacked out.
When I came to and my wife finally left me barefoot and pregnant, I tried to make sense of my surroundings. I honed in on the sock: the only thing my brain had registered throughout the entire morning debrief. Deciding to pull rank and not even ask what thankless child committed such a heinous act, I snatched up the sock and chucked it in the trash. That’s right kids, there’s a new sheriff in town. Teach you to leave a sock around. Have fun, wearing — mismatched socks! BWAHAHAHAHA! Okay, I thought, maybe I can do this after all. A plan was forming.
A quick scan of the kitchen reminded me of an episode from Hoarders. Piles of bags and forgotten art projects were stacked in haphazard piles on the kitchen island. Magazines littered the ground, the result of two children sprinting by and knocking them off the counter. Legos and toys of all kinds were covering stools, benches and dining room chairs. Cheerios and Goldfish were smashed apart on the ground, leaving anthills of tiny crumbs that resembled a lost Aztec city. The place was a mess.
This situation called for a forty-two-gallon Hefty trash bag. Hey, I’m a dad. I do trash. The kids might not be able to log into Google Classroom for a week, but the house was going to be clean damnit. Sweeping everything off the island right into the bag, I started making huge dents. Or so I thought. Trash seemed to proliferate like a virus. Lollipops were stuck to the nice furniture. Fruit snacks were stuck to the floor. Yogurt was somehow wiped all over the outside of the refrigerator. It looked like people were just trying to make a mess on purpose now, and my brain was starting to hurt. When I found several empty boxes that the kids left behind, after mindlessly shoving food into their faces, I felt the surface of my brain split open a tiny bit. But nothing sent me over the edge like the socks.
Socks were everywhere. There were socks in the dining room, family room, and the front hall stairs. Socks were hanging out on the counters and on the ping pong table. There were socks on the couch and on the ottoman. There were even socks in the garage and on the driveway. Disgusted, I opened the basement door to grab some more cleaning supplies and you know what I found there? Another sock! What is going on with the socks in this family? I decided it was time to make a statement. Every sock went in the trash. After fifteen minutes I was feeling like I had exorcised some major demons by filling the entire bag. Unfortunately, the house still looked like a bomb had gone off and I hadn’t even explored upstairs yet.
For the next two weeks, I promoted myself to Chief Sanitation Inspector of Casa Larson, and I took my job very seriously. Every corner of the house was scrubbed and cleaned, and the children were informed that they would be doing their own laundry from now on. Their rooms would also be subject to ten-point inspections, or whatever it was they did in the military, and I had a bullhorn to remind them of their duties if they got out of line. The only thing I didn’t care about was them making their beds, because I had never been too good about that either. But no matter how much I got the kids to pick up the wrappers in their bedrooms, help with the dishes, or do their own laundry, I’d still walk into a room that was just cleaned a few hours before, and find it looking like a scene from Animal House.
After two weeks I was still finding socks where they had no earthly reason to be, wrappers on the floor just inches away from the trashcan, and toys that I could have sworn I threw out the week before. When my wife got home I’d ask her where all this stuff was coming from, because I surely wasn’t buying it. She didn’t know either. But every day I’d take heaps of crap out of the house, making sure to get it to the dump as soon as possible so it would never come back in, and every morning the same crap would be spread out all over the house again. How can this be? The vandals living in my home must have some sort of tunnel system connecting their bedrooms to the closest Walmart.
My situation was hopeless. Not even three weeks into managing the home, and I was vanquished. I yielded my authority. What did it matter? Clearly they were able to get supplies somehow, so what did they need me for? I went back to my work. The house was a mess, but I was happier ignoring it. My plan was to shower my wife with praise when she got home, figuring she’d be happy to hear how much I respected her for dealing with terrorists these last twelve years. But when she got home that evening she informed me that the kids’ teachers were emailing her, wondering why the kids had stopped “showing up” for class. Apparently they weren’t bothering to hand in their homework either. Uh-oh. I’m in trouble.
The kids’ vandalism tactics had completely taken my eyes off the more important battle of schoolwork. What evil geniuses. They had me beat before I even knew there was another battle to be lost. Like a general swooping into rescue her lieutenant lost in the field, my wife gave me a game plan for how to attack. Reinvigorated for another round of fisticuffs, I entered the fray, monitoring their progress, introducing books to them, championing their efforts. And for three solid weeks I showed some real strength in the education game. Now I’m in the market for a tutor as well.
The battles at home this past year have proven one thing to me: if you give me a task related to parenting, I’m a three-week sprinter. That’s my cap. If the battle can be won in three weeks, I’m your man. Otherwise, forget about it. You should probably just let me go back to the office. The events of 2020 definitely changed my attitude towards house management and I can now see that my wife has been in trenches that I never want to crawl again.
So I’m trying to relax a little and not let the chaos get to me. Now when I see a sock on the floor, I just kick it to the side of the room closest to the stairs, hoping that it will eventually make its way to the laundry room. I still throw out trash like nobody else you know, but I’ve stopped hounding the kids to do it. I don’t have the time or energy. All I have energy left for now is revenge. I’m banking on the fact that my kids will get theirs when they have kids of their own, and I aim to be the chief supplier of resources for the enemy in the wars to come.
Ok now laughing so hard I’m crying….
You are the master of self-deprecating humor.