The ten year-old’s bedroom

Structurally, our house may be falling apart little by little. But dammit the inside is going to be clean even if it collapses around us.

This morning I felt like my only sister. I took the ten year-old up to his room and told him we were going to clean it from top to bottom. If I didn’t recognize a toy or thought that it was useless I was going to throw  it away. I told him if he whined, every freaking toy was going into the fireplace.

I was like a madman, chirping, “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon” every time I shoved something  at him to sort through.

Everything had a home. The Legos in one place (down in the new Lego room, which was formally the eighteen year-old’s room), the Transformers in another place, the Kinex in another, the board game pieces with the proper board games, the books on the shelves, the Yu-Gi-Oh cards separated from the Pokemon cards, the stamp collection recollected into its plastic container, the stupid dusty stuffed animals rearranged, the trophy and picture shelves dusted, the matchbox cars put into their bin, and stuff he wants to sell at a spring tag sale in another plastic bin.

I thought after three hours of this we were going to finish before the Giants game. Nope. When I pulled the bed out from against the wall I uncovered a year’s worth of junk and dust. More junk and dust and dust and junk.

We took a timeout to watch the game and eat. If the Giants were to lose the game, part two of the shakedown would be even more unpleasant for the boy.

The Giants played poorly and lost to the Eagles and put me into a very bad mood. I hate the Eagles. I hate when the Giants play like chumps. The ten year-old was in for a very unpleasant hour.

It was a very unpleasent hour. Besides finishing the room, he had homework that he kept putting off. So if he was going to save it for the very last task of the weekend, that was his problem.

Now it was my problem too. He was goofing around with the freaking dog and not listening to his mother or to me. OMG I was ten seconds from jacking his chubby ass against the wall!

Now the mother was yelling at him. We sent him to the kitchen table and told him not to come out or speak to us until he was done.

Even as I finish typing this entry, we are still yelling and screaming at him. He’s finally settling down and doing some work. He just announced that he is done. The mother is walking towards him. I’m not sure what the rest of the night will bring. I’m hoping by 8 o’clock we’ll all be watching a Christmas special.

This is why I couldn’t wait for the youth football season to end?