thanks to blender brood mother Tatiana Guerreiro Ramos for letting us republish this post from her blog.
Raisins in between the pads of the dogs’ paws. stickers on their fur, in places they can’t reach. Dried bubble-blowing solution, somehow, behind their ears ”“ like doggie perfume, perhaps?
Water surrounding the water bowl, splashed over the edge by an errant soccer ball, kicked around in the house against my entreaties not to. Please don’t. Please don’t. Please don’t. لو سمحت. لا. Pleeeeeeeeaaaaase.
جوارب. Towels. لباس نوم. soccer shorts. شين الحراس. Many, many, numerous shin guards. Flung. سخيف. في كل مكان.
Dried toothpaste on the sink. Like, Superglue dried. No, cement. Or better yet, oatmeal, yes, oatmeal. I had to use the edge of the nail clipper and a crowbar to get it off.
Mud from the local soccer pitch. On the tile floor. and ground into the grout. and around the door mat. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! The door mat!!! purchased in a haze of optimism and delusion at Target. So pretty, so shiny, so sparkly, and a symbol of a household filled with people who thoroughly wipe their feet at the door. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Beds unmade, pillows scrunched and kicked into corners, sheets hanging over the sides of the bunks, stuffies with stunned looks on their faces, waiting for their people to come home and snuggle and breathe unbrushed breath on them again.
Science experiments in backpacks ”“ formerly lovingly-prepared, yet uneaten, lunches. now a cool lump of living, gelatinous mold, oozing out of the side pocket.
Skidmarked underwear.
Tiny little crumbs of everything on all the things all the time in all the places all over the house all over the car all over the world and the universe and the galaxy and”¦oh, sorry.
Crusty”¦something”¦on the kitchen counter. مربى؟ شراب القيقب؟ مخاط؟ Your guess is as good as mine.
ألعاب الأطفال. holy shit. الألعاب.
LEGOs stepped on in the middle of the night, prompting silent screams and promises to get revenge in the afterlife on Ole Kirk Christiansen, that sadistic SOB who created hard-cornered, small as fuck, plastic building blocks. followed by sincere apologies, because he is an actual and revered god in our house.
Nerf gun foam bullets. all of them. Every single motherfucking one the company made, I’m sure of it. In the planters, in the dogs’ water bowl, behind the refrigerator, on the dogs, stuck to the crusty”¦something”¦on the kitchen counter, in between the windows and the window sills, under the couch, on top of the cabinets.
Pokemon cards. Pokemon figures. Pokemon video games. Pokemon stuffies. Pokemon books. Pokemon. Pokemon. Pokefuckingmon.
More skidmarked underwear.
Body wash, conditioner, and, inexplicably, glitter glue. لطخ. في كل مكان. In my shower.
سكر ناعم. Sprinkled like fairy dust. Or anthrax.
Was it the dogs? always on the hunt for something, anything, absofuckinglutely anything, to tear into and spread in chunks and bits and pieces all over the house, then shitting out, on the cowhide rug, what couldn’t be digested?
Or was it the spawn? always on the hunt for something, anything, absofuckinglutely anything, to tear into and spread in chunks and bits and pieces all over the house, then shitting out, in the low-flow, water-saving, can’t-flush-fuck-all toilet, what couldn’t be digested?
Ooh, look, even much more skidmarked underwear! Stuck to the pants of the skidmarker, who didn’t bother to disentangle them from the garment before throwing the tangled ball of clothes near the hamper.
Not in. Near.
Lunchboxes backpacks umbrellas old field trip forms spoons with crusty”¦something yogurt containers Clif Bar wrappers magic wands There’s My Lip Balm! laces to shoes no longer worn “scratchy” socks tossed back at me with derisive looks of disgust like can’t you even purchase the best fucking socks mom? Barbie shoe Ken t-shirt baby doll stroller wheel Play-Doh Play-Doh Play-Doh.
And over there, in the corner, my former life as a person With a clean House. Waving clean hands at me from afar, snickering cleanly to itself, and making unmessy, snide remarks about how it told me so, didn’t it, oh yes it did.
أتعلم؟
Fuck off, life of a person With a clean House.
I have spawned, and I have adopted unruly, neurotic dogs, and I do Sunday family Dinners, and hikes in the woods, and I invite siblings and their friends with no homes to stay with us while you look for another place to live; and I take (sometimes forced, get off the goddamn screens) walks with my spawn, and I agree to dinner and a film in Mom’s bed, and I am a person With a messy but full of love house now.
So I say yes to the mess. Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes.