I know it’s been a while. I know. No excuses. Forgive my absence. Eventually, things will settle and I’ll write more often again.
Yesterday was a long, long day. The Professor spent the day with diarrhea. The kind that falls out of your butt in streams every time you stand up. So that was fun.
So last night, around 6 or 7 pm, I am outside in the garage, putting laundry in the dryer, when The Professor comes to the back door crying. I hear him yelling that he needs my help. “The toilet is overflowing really bad Mom, and I really need to go!” he cried. At the garage door, I am given a second to assess the situation. There, at the back door, stands my little boy, with brown shit streaming down his legs and tears streaming down his face. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I rush out of the garage, leaving the garage door open and unlocked. The dryer door is open as well, but The Professor is having a crisis and I just don’t have time. The Gremlin follows me inside.
Oh my God. The bathroom is flooded with shit water. There is no possible way for me to avoid stepping in it. The Professor follows me because I didn’t tell him to stay put, so naturally, there is a trail of shit following him everywhere he goes. This is so fucking disgusting. There is half a roll of toilet paper floating at the top of the toilet because my son thinks his ass is the size of Virginia. Despite the fact that every time he clogs the toilet, I remind him that if he must use so much toilet paper, he needs to flush before putting more in the toilet, he “forgot”.
So I’m plunging. And plunging. And plunging.
Nothing. The toilet is completely clogged. My feet are wet. There is shit water everywhere. I’m completely disgusted. And then, the water slowly recedes. The toilet is still clogged, but at least the water isn’t running all over the bathroom.
And The Professor says “Mom, where’s my brother?” Fuck! A search ensues. He is not in the house. I go out back. I’m yelling his name. I hear him yelling back. He has somehow gotten himself barricaded in the garage. It only takes me a few seconds to get the door open. The first thing I see?
The Gremlin has something red in his hair. Something red on his eyebrows. Oh my God. I walk into the garage. There is red everywhere and some pretty potent fumes. Red spray paint. Shit. Shit. Shit. The Gremlin was in the garage spray painting while I was wading in shit water. There was red spray paint on the pool table, on the foosball table, on the air hockey table and the dryer. There was red spray paint on the treadmill, the floor and the weed whacker. There’s red spray paint on his Power Wheels. Red spray paint on the pool balls. Red spray paint. Everywhere.
For a moment, things fade. I stand there. I’m stunned. I’m pissed. I’m hearing Daddy Day Care trouble music in my head. There’s a puddle of gasoline on the floor. He dumped gasoline on the floor. All of the gasoline. This child is a force of nature. Destruction and wreckage is everywhere. I close the door, take The Gremlin back inside. The toilet needs to be fixed. But first, how do I get spray paint out of a child’s hair and how lucky is this child to have managed to have gotten his entire eyebrow, with no contact to his eye?
I grab the acetone I use for my nails and soak the nail sponge, gingerly soaking his red hair in the sponge and carefully…ever so carefully…running it over his eyebrows. The spray paint miraculously comes off. The Professor is standing wide eyed, just waiting for Mommy to lose it, pants around his ankles, shit EVERYWHERE. I tell him to clean himself up. I head out to the garage with the acetone. My husband is going to be furious. I scrub. And scrub. And scrub. But the acetone is evaporating quickly and I am soon out with only a fraction of the spray paint removed.
I go inside. Here come the tears. The Gremlin is oblivious. I haven’t starting yelling yet, but it’s coming. I feel it. And then, as I hear myself turning into a crazy person, I start yelling. While I yell, I flush the toilet and watch the water rise. I plunge furiously, stopping at intervals to scream. “FUCKERS!!!”
My fingers are sticky with spray paint. My white socks, brown with shit water. My germs meter is in the red. Feces. I won’t even keep my toothbrush in the bathroom because I once heard that feces are all over bathrooms despite your level of cleanliness. And it’s on my feet and the cuffs of my pants. And every time I plunge, water jumps and sloshes.
This was my night. My family, is a force of nature. Luckily for me, I found this stuff. It’s called Motsenbocker’s Lift Off #4 Graffiti Remover. Lowes and Home Depot sell it. It’s about ten bucks and this stuff really works. This morning, I was able to get all the spray paint off of everything. It says it removes other things too, and off porous and non-porous materials without ruining the finish on your furniture.
Thank you Mr. Motsenbocker. You saved my pool table. Thankfully, the little demon was only able to spray paint that which was at eye level, which means he didn’t get spray paint on the felt of the pool table. Thankfully, the boy wasn’t hurt. Well, not by the spray paint anyway. He did get a spanking though.
People, this three year old thing……actually the whole motherhood thing? Yeah. Yesterday, it was way over-rated.
