THIS DOES NOT BELONG IN THE SINK!
It’s like every time I have ever reminded her has NEVER happened. Because there it was. In the sink. The empty apple juice bottle, from which Rissa had poured her morning juice, sitting there, IN THE FREAKING SINK!!!!
“RISSA!!!!” I grab the bottle and hold it aloft – an impromptu weapon.
“Yes Mummy?” She comes in to the kitchen. Upon seeing me, she backs up a step. Her ingratiating/panicked smile withers under the wrath that is me.
“THIS,” I gesticulate with the empty bottle, “THIS DOES NOT BELONG IN THE SINK!!!“
“Was that in the sink?” Rissa feigns innocence. She blink-blinks at me like a newborn fawn.
I make a noise that is not human. Her eyes get very wide. “You are NOT that cute. Where does THIS belong?!?”
“………?” I can barely hear her response.
“WHERE?!?”
“In the recycling?”
“YES! THIS. BELONGS. IN. THE. RECYCLING!! Now please, for the love of everything holy in this galaxy, please put it IN the recycling before I beat you to death with it.” I throw in another “BLARGH!“ for good measure. She laughs, which is good, because it means that she doesn’t know how close I truly am to bludgeoning her with the bottle.
It’s a virtual mantra. “Rinse. Please rinse. Please rinse and deposit in the recycling.” She’s heard it so often that she should now be annoying her peers with her vigilance when they visit. In hushed tones she should be saying, “Never leave anything in the sink that could go in the recycling or the garbage. My Mom’s head actually implodes if she catches you.”
Oh GOD. I have morphed into this… this naggy, anal-retentive, MOTHER… I tell her EVERY morning to make her bed. After my reminding her, literally THOUSANDS of times, that her bed should be made, it’s as if I’m speaking in tongues. She looks at me in confusion. I am an incomprehensible, tenuously polite woman and this new-found knowledge is a revelation.
“Why yes, Mummy. What a great idea! Making my bed would make my room much tidier. I will hasten to do your bidding.”
She was there, even commiserated with me a while back when we stared in disbelief as David cleaned up his own kitchen mess. She was my wingman. They know, they both know that the house would devolve to anarchy without me in it. And yet… and yet… I frequently find myself turning into the snorting, crazy-eyed woman in a bath robe threatening the life of my child. Because, it’s not like she has a brain injury. She’s not Drew freakin’ Barrymore in 50 First Dates where each day she has forgotten everything she learned the day before. SHE SHOULD KNOW THIS!!!
9:00 a.m. Too early to start drinking?