“No way, I’m not going in there,” I tell my wife.
She shoots me the side eye, the universal wife look that all of us know. The one that comes out when we have said something that displeases our wives. Such as “Honey, I’ve picked up a nice cocaine habit and invested all of our savings into bitcoin.”
She can give me that look all she wants. I’m still not walking into my daughter’s room.
“I can smell it from here,” she says from outside the door. She’s not wrong, I can practically see the stink lines coming from under the closed door. My wife has a garbage bag in one hand and her hair tied back in a cleaning bandana. This is how I know she’s serious, she’s geared up to clean my daughter’s room.
Normally, when I see my wife dressed like this, I make myself as scarce as possible. True cloaking technology will be invented by a husband who is trying to avoid cleaning mom. She’s insane, as we all know.
“It’s probably dirty socks and underwear. Like, it’s not going to be something nefarious like a dead possum hanging from the ceiling surrounded by car air-fresheners. Probably,” I tell her. She doesn’t like my joke. Don’t care, still funny.
“Open the door,” she says and I hesitate because cleaning mom has no problem sacrificing the poor rube that is standing next to her in the name of a clean house. This is not a normal cleaning that we are doing, this is a MOM CLEAN. That psychotic realm where every scrap of dirt or dust has to be obliterated while she cackles madly. At the beginning of the day, I screamed to my children that mom was getting the bandana on. “Save yourselves! Hide and tell the world about my sacrifice!”
They scattered like the self-serving cowards they are and I tried distracting my wife. I gave the kids enough time for them to get away, but because kids aren’t smart, they didn’t leave the house. They hid in their rooms like panicked cavemen. And now, they are exactly where Mom wants them.
I open the door and my wife gasps. There is no dead possum, not even hex marks scratched into the door frame. It’s just my teenage daughter’s crap everywhere. It’s messy, sure, but she’s thirteen. If this is the worst I have to deal with, then I feel pretty good about it.
“Oh. My. God!” my wife says and my daughter scrambles off her bed. “Will you look at this mess!”
I can’t help it, I laugh. Remember me, dear readers, as a man who liked to laugh.
“There are clothes everywhere!” And the lecture begins as if this is the most horrific slight a mother can receive. A dirty room.
“But mom…” my daughter begins and I frantically shake my head behind my wife’s back. I’m trying to warn my little girl. Do not charge the bull when it’s stamping its foot! Get the hell out of there. Tuck and roll through the window and hope for the best. Take a fake identity and live as Julia, the dirty street magician, until you can save up enough to afford a hostel.
“How can you live like this! Well, I never!” my wife says, and I flat out lose it. The bull turns mid-charge and now comes my way.
“How could you?” she says like this is somehow my parenting fault.
“You’ve gone full-on cliche,” I say, making the same mistake as my daughter thus confirming our blood relation. “Will you look at this mess? Well, I never! Classic.”
My wife doesn’t say anything, but somehow I feel a pressure cascading down my skull. It’s the mom guilt that is being transferred my way. I have no idea how she does this, some sort of weirdo mom magic, but I can feel it as sure as I can feel the wind.
“Um, yeah! Look at this mess!” I say to my daughter, and I die inside a bit at my own betrayal. I’m going to save my own skin. I hope my little girl understands one day. “I just can’t even!” I have no idea what that last phrase means, but it sounds like something a suburban mom would say. I’m trying to adopt her lingo to save my own hide.
My daughter finally has the wisdom to keep her mouth closed and begins to clean her room. In an hour, we will be able to see the carpet. I help her because I don’t want to stand too close to my wife in case impales me on a bullhorn.
“You two work in here, I’m going to go to the other rooms.”
I don’t warn my boys.
Please forgive me.
Cleaning day has begun.
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