Mysterious disappearance of sibling stuff

Laddie left yesterday to head back to college after being home for Easter.  I stacked some of my popular chocolate chip cookies on a plate and shuffled out to the driveway to thank the guys who picked him up.  Laddie also gave them cash for gas. 

Getting rides to school in Iowa is a no-brainer, thank goodness.  Not sure we are ready for the transportation hassles and added expense when Laddie transfers to a school on the east coast next year.  I suspect that Lad will not be able to come home for short weekends like Easter and Thanksgiving.  His siblings might take comfort in the fact that they don't have to hide their stuff as frequently. 

Eddie texted me from high school yesterday a few hours before Laddie was due to be picked up.  'I left my moisture cream in the kids' bathroom can you put it in your bathroom so Laddie doesn't take it?  last time he took my acne cream.'  

I found the moisturizer cream on the kids' bathroom counter top and hid it in my bathroom.  I just bought this cream for Eddie .  His face is suffering thanks to the combined effects of chlorine from water polo practice his prescribed acne medicine.  The day he and I stopped at the drug store, he was talking like a ventriloquist without a puppet because it hurt his face to speak. 

His text made me think of socks.  Odd, but true.  When I was in high school, my sisters would come home from college and deplete my sock inventory.  It sucked.  What might be more ridiculous is that I matched colored socks to my shirts back in the day.  

At the Catholic high school I attended, we were required to wear a plaid uniform skirt.  A polyester blazer was necessary to be worn in the hallways between classes, but once the bell rang that ugly garment got tossed in the school locker.  No one wore them around the school except during the academic day.

Most of my photos from high school don't include socks - but this is the background of a picture where a girl is sporting her blazer, orange shirt, orange socks, and gray plaid skirt.  This was during an assembly so the music stand kind of got in the way. 

My sister - Marie, who transferred as a senior from a different Catholic school when we relocated for our Dad's job, found it strange that the uniform code allowed girls to wear any color shirt.  The only shirt restrictions that existed included:  1. must have a collar and 2. must be a solid color.  I started at the school as a freshman, so I had nothing but my Catholic grade school to compare with this high school dress code.  I felt like only dealing with a skirt was fairly lenient.  

After wearing a white blouse FOREVER in grade school, it felt freeing to wear any color shirt of my own choosing.  Within this Catholic high school culture, Marie and I soon discovered that girls coordinated their socks to their shirt color.  I thought we all looked ridiculous as we ignored the fact that we were decked out in a hideous skirt and focused instead on brightly color-coordinated shirts and socks.  

Needless to say when Ann and Marie breezed into town and snagged my colored socks, my high school fashion foundation felt compromised.  

Deodorant overload. Considering some keep a stick in their room!

My kids find it troubling that growing up my sisters and I shared one communal drawer for our underwear and another for our socks.  Three of us dipped into the same available stash each time we got dressed.  

I don't think they could cope with the fact that we used the same deodorant for years.  My kids are like wild animals who abandon their young if they pick up another animal's scent . . . they CAN'T touch a deodorant if they sense that a sibling has 'borrowed' it.  Boggles my mind.  I am quick to point out:  it's an armpit - not a butt.  

Perhaps a single family deodorant is the way to go!

Even before Eddie's text yesterday afternoon, Tank made an announcement.  Most of the kids were eating breakfast.  Laddie was still sleeping (obviously): 'Laddie goes back to school today.  Hide all of your stuff - especially your cash.'  

Nothing is sacred.  Not even socks.  I heard a few complaints about missing socks when Lad  packed up after spring break.  My boys own a few pairs of coveted high-end sport socks - nothing like the bright colored socks of my youth.