Paper Work

Nitty gritty family stuff. Don't read if uninterested. And if you've never "been there" I might just want to trade lives.

I'm in the house with two of the three children. The other adult is off on the second business trip in a week, and I've just returned from driving the eldest to college 1,000 miles away, where other adult managed to meet us for about 24 hours to help get settled in before jet-setting off to said business meeting. Safety and general food intake supervision was provided here at home, but household management -- not. We didn't expect it to be, but I haven't given up hope that one day, before I am dead, these children will notice when stuff is piled and scummy or out of place or simply missing. Especially the must-haves of life, gone missing.

The first two nights back after full day’s work and new days of school, "we" here were able to pull some stuff together. I made lists and gentle requests for pile haulers to disseminate accumulations of household stuff, caught up with laundry, re-discovered the kitchen counter tops. With lists (who dragged out what, you see. Claim honestly if you were the one who left the Corel plate on the patio bricks, with the fork stuck into the dried residue of what? Had that been cake with colorful icing?), we did a team scour of the back yard where the neighborhood has been at play: squirt guns, water balloons, folding chairs, throw rugs, tire swing burning hot rubber into the grass in the daytime heat, dried-up paint can with stain from the play set project -- dried brushes bonded inside the cans and needing to get tossed straight into the trash, et cetera. All was eventually beginning to hum at a pitch closer to normal.

So, by late evening I'm on the internet, Skyping with said eldest at college -- classes start tomorrow -- while dabbling on Facebook (I have funny friends!) and suddenly need to head upstairs to take care of some personal business. Quickly. I hit the closest bathroom and realize I'd best not get comfortable there, there's absolutely no paper in the vicinity. The shelf is empty, the cupboard is empty, the top of the tank holds simply a wadded up wash cloth. Even more quickly, I head around the corner to the master bath. 

Did I mention that I had reading material on hand? Indeed, and my response to said reading material was, as one might say, requested ASAP. So I get comfortable. I read and proceed to finish up the paper work in order to move forward to respond in a timely manner to the provider of said reading material. However, it is only at this point that I see there is also no paper in my own bathroom. Conveniently, my guess is that kid A saw hall bath void, so headed to master bath, depleted supplies, and walked off with nary a thought to future provision. Two kids are sleeping, yes both A and B (or so they feign). I'm on my own for this one.

Typically, my drawer has a plentiful backup supply. Not tonight. Even the wipes we keep around for handy clean up have been depleted. Woe c'est moi.

Enough said. Before responding to the reading material, before pulling the next load out of the washing machine, I head to the voluminous STASH of t.p. we keep on the main floor and load up three bathrooms with a half dozen rolls a piece. In my room, I insert the fresh roll into its proper place. Into the first bathroom, where said two children frequent most often (except, I guess, when they’re out of paper!), I set most in the cupboard and one fresh roll on the counter. Let’s see if they insert and mount the roll into the dispenser. Sometime before I die.