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June 1, 2020

Herculean task I hate & a 'mess with me, will you? moment

Oh look, our garage vomited!
I returned from my walk Sunday morning to a glorious sight.  The entire contents of our garage had been dumped onto the driveway.  Why was this glorious?  Because, for once I was not spearheading this enormous undertaking.

For the record, we have a three car garage and we can usually only fit the great white in there.  It fits in the double side surrounded by bikes and garbage bins, etc.  So, yeah . . . STUFF.  

Ya know what's fun?  Being
almost 50 and owning baby gear.
We can actually fit the minivan in on the other side (in the single garage) but good luck extricating yourself from inside of the car.  Unless you have special powers and can take flight - it's not worth it.  You would have to be able to fly or have some serious hops to get over the two lawnmowers that are usually nestled between the great white and the red minivan thereby pinning the driver into the car.  

Coach knows I have been a little stressed out lately.   So, when I left for my walk and called out a warning to Reg:  "We will probably clean out the garage today,"  Coach, the smart man that he is, got a jump start.  Day made.  
Bikes and golf clubs might pin us in our car
one day.  Thankfully cell phones are usually
 available in case we need
 to call for the jaws of life.

It was not supposed to be crazy hot, so I thought great day for this.  I was being a little saucy though because I had not run the project idea past Coach, so sorta bold and maybe a tinge bossy.  I will say that many, many times I have cleaned the garage out with the help of my children or mostly on my own because Coach is OK with it becoming downright dangerous in there.  It is a herculean task that I loathe.  

What would've made my day even better is if I didn't have to be involved at all, but beggars cannot be choosy.  Plus, I own several strollers and a wagon for my babysitting gig so I figured I better pitch in.  

*Feel free to replace beggars here with the only person that really occasionally gives a damn that our belongings and our excess crap doesn't swallow us whole.  

I never mentioned the tile . . . loads of leftover
tile from every project ever were
 in the garage.  I hauled them
 to the basement with Mini and Reg and
 wiped them all down and stored
 them under the basement sink.
Anyway the project was gross:  lots of dust, dirt, spiders, and filth.  Four bikes have been selected to be either sold, or thrown away.  I'm guilty for damaging some bikes with the great white.  We have a bike rack but if the kids don't store the bikes correctly, then they (the bikes, not the kid)  inadvertently end up under the great white's tires.  Not a pretty way to go.  

Reggie and Curly worked tirelessly on the emptying of the garage.  Curly eventually begged to be released from duty to shower.  Reg would go inside but kept coming back out and doing a little bit more.  He admitted that he felt bad because:  "Daddy said he didn't want to be out here all day and he is still here."  Can we give this kid a gold star?

Look at that neat little pile.  Now, you
 might need to remind me where I stowed
 them, because I do that when I organize: 
Oh, this will fit right here.
  Months later: 
Where the hell is the ___?
Mini stumbled out after waking up at noon.  She looked still very much asleep and I was like "What's wrong?" as in - why are you out of bed when it's just noon?  She admitted that she heard about the project and was worried she'd be in trouble if she didn't help.   

A bit later she went inside to get a wet rag for us and LITERALLY stumbled down the step and landed on the floor on her way back in the garage.  It was NOT graceful, but once again I was relieved when she started chuckling so we could all start laughing at her (Yes, I'm THAT mom, in case by now there was any doubt) and of course most importantly I was relieved because her laughing meant she wasn't hurt.  

Lad poked around in the garage and helped a bit here and there.  

Ed was off the hook because he was caddying.  He made $200.  The course is technically not open, but Ed is still getting requested.  I think he is on the caddy master's 'list.'  The other kids hope to get to start caddying again soon, because:
     a)  they get paid great and 
     b) it gets them out of hard labor on the home front.  

Then there was Tank.  He came out and did a few things, but he would sneak back inside occasionally and tell Reg, "Mommy is calling you."  Reg had already done more than his share and would come outside and say, "You want me, Mommy?" So, I got wind of Tank's nonsense and lost my shit.  

Then Tank kept trying to jump the gun and throw everything back into the garage haphazardly.  I finally released him of his garage duty but assigned him to scrub all 4 toilets and empty all bathroom garbage.  

Mess with me, will you?

So, who messed with you this weekend?  Or share your least favorite household task.  Or what project your spouse or your offspring have taken on to make your day?


4 comments:

Busy Bee Suz said...

Way back when we first built this house we had just a regular two-car garage. I recall having coach's full-sized truck and my suburban in there....plus the kids bikes/skates/toys/fridge and of course housekeeping stuff.
I don't know how we did it.

I don't even want to tell you how many garages we have now because it's embarrassing; the coach has a thing for garages.

I empathize with you on this because I know you have a lot more people than I did and those people come with a lot of baggage. ;)
Laughing at the baby gear at almost 50.

BUT, the best part is that you guys DO keep all your shit in the garage; Maryann is SO lucky!
I bet a lot of people just leave the crap in the driveway for everyone to see and enjoy.

Not one person messed with me this weekend. Sorry.
My least favorite task? Hmmmmm....I did clean my ovens this weekend and I tried the soaking in the tub method for my racks; didn't work perfectly, but helped somewhat. I think oven cleaning is my least favorite task though.

Kari said...

You should just leave all of that in the driveway to annoy Maryann. Tell her you're going a different way with storage. Take pictures of her face.

Mike and I took the dog and went for a long drive yesterday. It was glorious and the first weekend we've done something like that since probably Christmas.

My least favorite task is probably cleaning the bathrooms.

Kara said...

We did irrigation repairs (unplanned) because there was a leak that was flooding the next-door neighbor's yard. It was under so much granite on our side that we didn't even see it. He came over Saturday morning all heated up about it. So, that was Saturday morning. We also tackled the part of the kitchen counter that all the mail gets thrown on. We found lots of treasures in there, like tax returns for 2017-2019 that I hadn't put in the filing cabinet yet and $22! So, the $22 bought us lunch. There's also a stack of uncashed scratchers that are $1 or $2 winners, but who knows how old they are. Someone (I nominate my husband) will have to scan them and see if we can still collect on them.

Gigi said...

Getting the garage in order is HUGE! Ever since I did ours, I am constantly nagging The Husband to put things back where he found them because I don't want to go through that again.