Getting My Revenge

Apparently I’m not a good trainer. It’s quite a blow to my esteem but I have irrefutable evidence. Exhibit one was when I came home from work to find a dry dishcloth fused to my hardwood floor in front of the fridge. I’m pretty sure I’ve explained the procedure behind cleaning up a spill and I’ve demonstrated it several times. Wet a dish towel, wring it out, wipe up the spill, and return the dish towel to the sink. And yet, one of my children treated a spill like it a burial—cover it up and let Mom take care of it when she finally smells it.


Exhibit two is the sink and the dishwasher. Both these items are always clean and free from clutter. That’s because my kids can’t get the dishes into either one of them. Nope, instead the dishes pile up on the countertop near the dishwasher and near the sink.

I spend time every day wondering where I went wrong. I’ve tried to train them and I’ve failed. I have a friend who must be a wonderful trainer because her children do mysterious things like picking up the items sitting on the stairs and taking them up with them—and she doesn’t even have to ask! They also hang their backpacks on hooks. Mine drop their backpacks under the hooks. Her children wipe up counters and table tops too. I’ve never, not once, seen one of my children wipe a table unless you count sweeping the cracker crumbs onto the floor with their hand so that their Dad won’t yell at them for eating in the family room.

That’s another thing. My kids know they’re not allowed to eat outside of the kitchen. It’s a well established rule and violations make my husband crazy. It got to the point where I finally bought a T.V. for the kitchen so that they had no excuse for eating in other rooms of the house—and that didn’t even work. I still find crackers in their beds and empty Oreo cookie packages shoved under the couch.

Maybe my kids have a short circuit in their brains and, when I speak to them, all they hear is that “waa waa” sound like the teacher in the Peanuts comics. I sure hope so because, if they’re listening then that means that they just plain don’t care. What they don’t realize is that I’m not as dumb as I look and I have a very long memory. I can be patient, but I will get my revenge--eventually. When I visit my grandchildren, I’m bringing Oreos, I’m eating them the family room and I’m pretending that the space behind the throw pillows is a trash receptacle.