Playing Detective

There are certain phrases circulating in my home that I can count on hearing when something gets broken, misplaced, used incorrectly..or when a chore is incomplete or doesn't get done at all...

"I don't know how that happened."
"I thought I......(insert anything)"
"It wasn't like that when I used it the last time."
"I told (insert another family member's name) not to do that!"
"I completely forgot."
"It wasn't my turn."
"The kids did it." (Thanks adults in the house for joining the ranks of the I didn't do it-ers.)
"I asked him/her to do it for me."
"I told the kids to pick that up..." (Thanks again adults)

Lest we forget the ultimate non responsive blank stare, head tilt, raised eyebrows, and "hmmm" answer.

I would love to say that this doesn't happen on a daily basis, but that would be lying. It never fails that something comes up that leaves me shaking my head and thinking, "what the ever loving #$@#"?

Some mysterious things happen in my house. Since I don't believe in gremlins, I am left to believe that SOMEONE in my house is doing this stuff. Yet, I never really get a direct answer of who it is. So I have to play detective and deduce using strange clues.

It becomes an obsession at times. For a month straight, I kept trying to catch someone in the act of leaving the cabinet doors open. Come to find out, it was two family members doing it. Now I just walk around closing them and yelling both of their names while saying, "when I finally snap and go insane..you will feel bad!!"

Yesterday, I decided to vacuum all the little corners and edges of the house that get ignored because it means using the attachment and bending over. Vacuuming is one of the chores that my son and daughter are responsible for. (I feel I must add that we only have one room with carpet, apart from eight steps and a landing) So I dig the vacuum out and turn it on....and vacuum the SAME square foot for a full three minutes before realizing that the thing wasn't working. After cleaning the brushes..I realized the belt was broke. So while Kendrick was off buying a belt, I started taking the canister apart.. in it was enough cat and human hair to knit a football field sized blanket, a mini candybar (intact and in the wrapper), several dryer sheets, random pieces of tissue, and........an entire lipstick tube.

A.lipstick.tube. Apart from being baffled how these things even made it to the canister..I found myself getting more and more irritated. Who looks at these things and thinks, "it'll suck it up..."?!? Secondly, are my children broken at the waist?! Surely that has to be it because otherwise they would bend over and pick that stuff up. Right? RIGHT?!

Brandon gave me the head tilt and pinched eyebrows, Aria asked, "how did that happen?"

I don't remember anything after that because smoke started pouring out of my ears and the top of my head just blew right off.

These are the true moments that make moms, wives, and girlfriends rally together. This is why some people have a glass of wine every night. This is why women are sometimes distrustful. And this is why women tend to follow people around and pick up after them. You can spot them at parties, they are the ones walking around, mindlessly picking everything up while the kids and men play. Probably perhaps because we know we are the ONLY ones who will fess up to not doing it.