…bilge

Over the years, I’ve attempted to clear the bilge from the decks with every inventive remedy. I’ve charged a bounty for kidnapped items. I’ve raked up, and counted the stash and named the highest offender my personal slave for a day. I’ve even swabbed it into one gigantic pile in the living room and made the scurvy rats walk the plank, but none of these feel as satisfying as my most recent solution.

I now bury the booty wherever it doesn’t belong. I know it’s not a new idea for me. In the past I’ve done it accidentally anyway, but now in the future, I will it purposely and continue on without apology.

The daughter responds after an extended search where she finds her calculator in the cereal box in the pantry. She mutters, “Spare me the creative mother.” But, it’s back to the drawing board for the son who thinks the winter hat box on the top shelf of the front hall closet is now the perfect nesting place for all of his school books.

Dear Me,
Writing may accomplish what I’ve been striving for since the dawn of conception—the shifting of the heavy weight of responsibility onto the progeny’s precarious stack. It may upset that balance of things and cause it all to topple, but when desperate measures result in more desperate times, the bottom line is: Who will really notice?

Reality bite: Desperately seeking something.