Summertime is here. Huge, heavy, sweaty, beleaguered sigh. And … the animals are home to roost, eat, defecate enormously, eat and torture their landlord. And eat.
I realize I have a faux rendition of multiple personality disorder. I’m happy when they leave. I’m sad when they leave. I’m happy when they visit. I want to kill them when they leave a takeout container of chicken alfredo in the back seat of my car for a 90-degree week. There’s just no making me happy!
If the big Pharma’s were smart, they’d hire a middle-aged, female chemist to piece together whatever miraculous cocktail is necessary to formulate a new menopausal, kids-home-for-summer, hate-husband medication and call it MNH (“Mama’s Never Happy”).
It could be worse, I know. They both have full time jobs for the summer and are largely staying out of trouble. Although, it’s early July. By August, I could be visiting either of them in a holding cell. You just never know. You really do not.
Here’s what I do know: The tens of thousands of dollars in student loans they both will have to repay is going to hurt. A lot. Because instead of stocking away their paychecks this summer, they fling that money at so many stupid things it makes me want to slap the crap out of them.
New sunglasses? Heck, yeah. Sat on four pairs within the last month.
New Vans sneakers? A summer must.
Phone? Well what’s a boy to do when the fifth one he’s owned in two years mysteriously slipped from his pocket onto pavement somewhere in Neverland, Pa.?
My older son is smart, charismatic, kind and the biggest pig I’ve ever encountered. Dirt just sloughs off of him and onto every surface of the house. I won’t even begin to describe the daily nail-clipping debacle because you’ll regurgitate your breakfast.
This morning, I couldn’t find the toothpaste. Later, I located it in the shower along with his toothbrush, my really expensive for-bleached-blondes-only shampoo (which was hidden), a Red Bull (Summer Edition) and grapes.
Hugely agitated, I stalked throughout the house bellowing for him, but following his doughnut-crumb trail, all I found was a pile of mildewy clothes and shoes festering on his floor, topped off with a Little Debbie box (no Debbies inside) and a half-eaten meatball sandwich. I closed the door, said a prayer and went to my Zen place: TJ Maxx.
Incidentally, summer is also the time for some highly intellectual conservational camaraderie between the two brothers. I wish you could all be a bevy of flies on the wall in my kitchen right now.
Patrick: “Wow. Did you know cinnamon is the oldest spice in the world?”
Me: “That’s interesting! In what class did you learn that tidbit?”
Him: “It says it right here on the back of the Frosted Flakes box.”
Me: Silence. Hands clenched.
Nicholas: “Well, did you know that tigers love pepper? But they hate cinnamon.”
Me: Eye roll: “Cereal box?”
Him: Insulted: “No! Hangover! Pretty much the most awesome movie ever made!”
Deep, deep, guttural sigh.
And there you have it, right here in the Heck kitchen. All the education, the forced reading of classics, the Scrabble games, National Honor Society, the awards … for nothing. Apparently spending a behemoth of Benjamins in higher education is a waste. Just read cereal boxes and watch bad movies. Apparently, that’s where the real-life lessons lie.
I love September.
MNH.
