The New Flavoured Chips

I’m quite able to just come out and say that I am anal when it comes to the house.  Maybe even over the top.  But hey, I like it clean.  As far as mental ‘issues’ I could have been born with, this would be my choice.

If we were living in a sitcom, we sure as hell wouldn’t be “Friends”.  We’re not young, thin and impossibly groovy.  No, we are more like Oscar and Felix.  For those that are under forty, they were ‘The Odd Couple’ - Felix Ungar, a neurotic, neat freak photographer is thrown out by his wife, and moves in with his friend Oscar Madison, a messy sportswriter.

And I’m afraid we are true to form.  I iron everything.  Everything is neat, clean, and shiny.  He is a rumpled mess (unless I iron) and he and his brood have a propensity to drop anything wherever they are when they finish with it; literally!  This encompasses everything from guitars to chip bags.

As you can imagine, watching this unfold before my eyes is distressing and I sit and bite my tongue as it is pretty obvious that our houses/families are at opposite ends of the clean scale.  If the squeeze reads this, he will make a Pfffftttt sound in regards to my “zipping it” but the truth of the matter is that I am probably only voicing one of the twenty plus signals that sound an alarm in my head.

I’ve had to endure his house; the photos and my horror of it remain on this blog.  I’ve seen photos of the family home and could only shake my head in wonder at the scene depicted.  There was literally, stuff hanging off every surface.

I’d rather be stripped naked, staked to an ants nest and covered in honey than let anyone, even a real estate guy, into my house to see that; let alone have it recorded for all of history that I was a slovenly pig!

So I really do try to zip it and swallow the comments that naturally wish to jump out of my face, because hell, the kid has been reared with zip organizational skills and zero cleanliness and hygiene.

Just yesterday I swallowed an array of barked comments such as “get your feet off the damned wine cupboard!” And “there is no drought… Repeat… This has been the wettest September for years.  When you go to the loo, flush the damned button!!!!”  And to the pair of them “the next fricking sticker I find from an apple, I’m going to staple to your arses!”  This after waking yesterday to find an apple sticker stuck to my hip (Squeeze) and one pulled off an apple and stuck on my antique desk in the study (Kid). 

I know that they have been raised with a lack of care for anything.  Ie:  I must have told the Squeeze at least ten times that the hotplate from the Webber was sitting in the rain and would go rusty; and there was no hope in hell that I was going to go out and get it.  Every time I thought about it, I vowed to cut my own arm off before saving it, because hell, he has to learn!  And snap, how wasteful is that? 

So yes…  I get it!  Things don’t mean much to them, which is why they lived off ugly, mismatched scarred furniture. 

I however, have taken great pains to acquire each piece in my home.  Some individual pieces I have spent weeks doing up.  Watching the kid flop down with dirty bare feet on my white sofa makes my teeth grind Marge Simpson style; watching those same feet all over the wine cabinet… equal grinding.  Seems disrespectful to me.  Wiping the dirty hand prints from the wall is a repeated aerobic workout – but I live in hope that he will learn.  And on Saturday, I saw a tiny spark of hope when Kid 1 arrived and Kid 3 yelled in a fearful voice “take your shoes off!”

So I attempt to raise issues with the Squeeze so that he can address them.  Ie: the fact that the Harridan sends him to our place for four days, but he doesn’t have anything more than one pair of shorts and a pair of dirty track suit pants.  Sorry, but that is something he has to make comment on as it’s not fair to us, or the kid. 

Then, there is a distinct lack of hygiene in the form of washing, showering and teeth brushing – a fact that I have raised previously.  The Squeeze says that I have a multiple showering requirement, but I don’t think my judgment is out in expecting a person to shower at least once a day!

Yesterday I had a moment of absolute amusement while changing the bed.  I had been shoo’d from the lounge because they had returned home from bonding and taken over the television.  I can usually handle this but had no intention of standing there ironing while watching a movie produced for fourteen year old males. 

Instead, I decided I’d finish the rest of the work and was busily changing the doona cover when the kid sailed past and went to the loo.  I was just finishing the bed when the toilet door opened and the kid came out, only to walk right past the bathroom, through the dining room, into the lounge to flop back onto the sofa, pick up a large bag of chips and plunge his hand around inside.

I didn’t say a word.

I didn’t even say a word when I came past a little later and saw the Squeeze with a handful of chips.  Instead, I emailed him and suggested that he needed to address the hygiene concerns that not washing your hands after going to the toilet create.

I finished off with “hope you enjoyed your poo flavored chips”.

I was still snickering about it hours later!