in case you thought I was exaggerating

I've probably mentioned before that we live in organized chaos.  Our family is not overly focused on being surrounded by neat rooms with nothing out of place.  Far from it.

I do ask the kids to put things away.  Sometimes if I ask them to put something away that I find in the family room, they might get as far as the stairs.  There, the item gets abandoned.  Later when they walk up the stairs, they pass the out-of-place thing AND DON'T BOTHER TO PICK IT UP.  Why?  Why is this a thing?  They are not as geriatric as me - why can't they handle a flight of stairs?  Or bending over to pick their stuff up off of the stairs when they are on their way to bed?

They do have chores.  I admit that without a kitchen and a visual reminder board of chores, the chore thing has gone to the wayside.  Occasionally the stars align and there is some order in our home.  It rarely lasts long.

Some of the kids are better at pitching in than others.  I am constantly harping on the importance of a job well done.  Tank struggles more than any of them to grasp that concept.  I could write a book about how Tank keeps life jazzy and never dull.  I would title it:  'Life with Tank.'

Can you see it? 
White bag under the window?

In early December I asked him to empty the bathroom garbage cans.  We were headed to Eddie's game at the United Center.  Cousins were coming to hang out at the house before we headed back for the Bulls game later that night.  Tank tried to argue with me that kids (like his cousins) wouldn't really care if the bathroom garbage was overflowing.  'Good point, but still - go empty the garbage', was the angle I went with.  I'm crazy like that.

He was playing Xbox at the time.  He FINALLY disappeared for a few minutes and was re-attached to the video game handset in no time.  I questioned how he could be done doing the job properly in lightning speed.  He insisted he had done what I asked. 

Aerial view of the discovered bags nestled
between the coffee table and the window. 
Why not?

Later that day when we returned from the Bulls game I saw something odd in the living room.  Our coffee table was pushed up against the windows to make room for our kitchen table that was relocated to our living room during kitchen construction.  The 'everything-is-out-of-place' scenario makes it even more remarkable that I noticed this, but I guess it was my mom-radar.

There between the coffee table and the windows were white bags brimming over with bathroom related garbage.  In his haste to return to his video game, Tank had dropped several bags of garbage behind the coffee table.  This quick-release of the garbage bags vs. taking the extra 20 steps towards the garage saved him oodles of time and caused me endless amounts of frustration.

We've had a dumpster on our driveway for months and months.  Toss the trash in the dumpster for God's sake - it is an easy target.  The living room floor?  No!  Please, no.

Just so you don't think I am exaggerating when I say that our house is up for grabs and I can literally stumble across anything at any time.  That in a nutshell is life with Tank. 

I once caught Lad sweeping a pile under an upholstered chair in the study when we were preparing for a party, but Tank's methods take the cake.  What have your kids done to avoid chores?