swear-maid's sock duty hold the bon bons

Do your stairs look like this?

Just when I thought I would wake up and lounge around on the couch eating bon bons, I decided the stairs needed to be addressed.  Apparently, our housekeeper had the day off.

In the Shenanigan home, our housekeeper is a mythical creature.  You've heard of a mermaid?  Well our servant is a swear-maid.  While her octopus-like arms rotate in constant motion, she emits a steady stream of foul language.  Her ability to withstand unexplained clutter can only be described as unnatural.  We are blessed to employ her - although to be honest, we pay her next to nothing even though she works long hours.  Over time, she's grown accustomed to be taken for granted.  Thanks to her unfortunate hair, she bares a close resemblance to me.

Unfortunately, when one area of our abode gets the spic and span treatment from our swear-maid  another area suffers.  It seems pointless at times for her to try to keep ahead of each mess because an impending disaster lurks around every corner.

Knowing how burdened swear-maid is, I recently requested that my offspring help sort laundry.  It started with the kid in the cast.  While my empathy for his bummer of a situation is abundant, my desire to make everyone contribute overruled my pity party for him.

He complained that it was too hard to fold laundry with one arm when I expressed my disbelief that he hadn't accomplished much.  'Don't fold it - just sort it!'  Any progress is appreciated in the disaster zone we live in.

The next day Reggie and Curly claimed that they attempted to work on the mangled piles of laundry.  Admittedly it is hard to distinguish who wears what.  Three tall, skinny teenage boys plus a tall, skinny husband leads to much confusion when it comes to sweat socks, tee-shirts, shorts, and boxers.

Ugly boxers assist in sorting
laundry for multiple family
members.

I recently purchased new boxers for Eddie.  I purposely chose an ugly plaid by Hanes so that his underwear doesn't get confused with the other, more common underwear plaids we already own.  Ed was less than enthusiastic about owning ugly underwear, but he's even less enthusiastic about helping me sort laundry.  I win.

I am, however, losing when it comes to the stairs.  When I stumble upon dirty clothes - more often than not socks - I toss them near the stairs.  The laundry room is upstairs.  Eventually I snag crusty, stinky socks from the stairs and launch them thru the laundry room door.

Don't even get me started on the sock stripping issue my children have adopted.  It boggles my mind.  There are socks strewn all across most floors in the house.  They can be found stuffed between couch cushions, littering the mud room floor, and abandoned in the living room or the kitchen.  Years ago I sat down to play a board game with the kids.  When we opened the box, we discovered a crunchy, smelly sweat sock hidden inside for the next unsuspecting player.  

The laundry folding assistance debacle led to someone eventually dumping clean socks on the stairs.  I imagine this act was in response to my constant hollering to 'get that laundry out of the family room!'  Now clean socks are intermingled with dirty socks.  On the stairs.

I am so excited to forgo the bon bon inhaling that I had scheduled for today to instead give random socks a good sniff test.  This is what I get for asking for help with the laundry.  Swear-maid will undoubtedly make an appearance.  Bad hair, bad words, and all!