I was looking for a lost shoe. It was a teeny sneaker, Keds, size 4.5 that had belonged to my son two years ago and I was thinking it would look pretty good on my daughter who is learning to walk. I had one of the shoes in my hand, and was in the process of turning the house upside down trying to find the other when I found the bag.
It didn’t dawn on me immediately what the bag was, and when it did, a single-line-facebook-status formed in my head. “No one likes to find an unpacked picnic bag this long after summer”. At this point you might be as disturbed about the fact that I’ve started thinking in facebook statuses as you are about the unpacked picnic bag, but believe me, when I realized exactly what it was I took a step back and a sharp intake of breath. As it turned out, it could have been far worse.
Contents:
Sippy Cup with strange skin of mold
Bag full of crushed crackers
Tiny Tupperware box with shadowy growth when held up to light
Creased pink baby sun hat
Plastic farm pig
One moldy sock
My heart was thumping as I picked my way through the picnic bag and although the one moldy sock remains somewhat of a mystery, and I may have to conduct a controlled explosion to get rid of the tiny box (because there is no way on this earth that I am opening it), I think I got off lightly. Because, since I have been a mother I have felt like food, my one-time friend, has turned on me. Long gone are the days when I could cook for an afternoon and then linger over dinner and drinks for hours. The only place I linger these days is near my daughter’s highchair with a catchers mitt in one hand, the dustpan and brush in the other.
Anyone who knows me knows that the kitchen floor drives me to despair: how many times can you clean something only to have it showered, smudged, sprinkled and flooded multiple times a day? The only thing that seems to attract more mess than the kitchen floor is the car. And seriously people, whoever said that you shouldn`t cry over spilt milk didn`t spill it in their car on a hot week last summer.
I’m still looking for the shoe. But now each time that I open a new cupboard I’m nervous about what I might find instead.
