Insanity Tips for Everyday Life

In the battle to maintain some semblance of domestic serenity, I find staunch denial a most effective tool.  Ergo, I've mastered the art of selective blindness.  If I don't see it, it's not messy.  It probably explains a lot about my house in general to my extended family to disclose this piece of information.

However, as I have aged, I have found despite my best intentions, my eyesight is improving.  I can't not see some things.  As a result, I have had to resort to other equally effective but willful actions to prevent the dust bunnies from swarming and causing permanent despair.  I yield these tips with the caveat that they will not keep you sane, but they will make the madness you embrace significantly happier.

10) Tell your appliances your expectations.  Then remind them that you have the number to 1800Got Junk if they start acting up.

9) Declare Laundry Amnesty for three days. Yes your pile will be huge when you get to it, but honestly, those 72 hours will feel really nice. Repeat after me, "I am the Queen of Egypt. I live on Denial." Then order dinner. 

8) Initiate a phone tree application when your children come to report that soandso said I couldn't play and so soandso is a stinky meanie pig head. "For homework help, press 1. For requests for snack, press 2, special projects or attire, press 3, tattling 4..." and have hold music at the ready.

7)When encountering an unexpected mound of trash or dishes, adopt a silent film persona. "So...We meet again Vile Pile...." or alternatively, become the villain and laugh "Muhahahahahahahaha!" as you turn on the disposal.

6) Dust off your robot 80's dance.  Make lunches in your best retro fashion.  Again, a soundtrack is useful but not necessary. Working in silence does however, keep your kids off balance and that's part of the appeal.

5) Hold a Burial service for all those non working machines in your home that you stubbornly forget to throw away.  Let your children play taps.  Toss them one at a time, maybe say a few works and feel the intense satisfaction of knowing, the vacuum that quits within five minutes of being plugged in and that always works perfectly when you take it to the shop, shall plague you no longer.

4) Pick a memorable date on the calendar.  On this day, sort all the socks.  Throw away all those that cannot find a mate.  Their time of dating in your household, is over.  They're spinsters. They're done.

I use Mardi Gras.Tax day works too.

3) Practice unleashing your mutant powers to make the piles of toys clean up themselves.  Alternatively, wave your magic wand and order the room to clean itself.  Complain about the unfairness of a lack of radioactive creatures running around to bite you and infuse your blood stream with superhero-ness and your own muggle status. Then don a cape and set the timer.  If you can't actually have powers, you might as well enjoy pretending.  Growl, "I'm Batgirl."

2) Pay yourself.  "Sherry, there are 20 dollars at Barnes and Noble waiting for you plus a Lindt Semi-Sweet Bar if you get the basement clean today."  Sign that contract. Then enforce it.

1) Compose your to-do list in the form of a poem.  You'll still make the list and you'll have satisfied the crazy art muse at the same time.  

Wash the dishes, fold the clothes
Feed the children, put the shoes in rows.
Hang the coats and make the beds.
Wipe the sinks and write poetry instead.

Pay the bills. Unload the washer and restart.
It's not earth shattering, nor is it great art.
Prep for dinner and load the car for errands
Don't forget the dry cleaning or the calendar.

 Then, if the dishes and laundry and house still seems too bad to manage, hold the phone overhead and declare....I will order Pizza if this floor is clean in 30 minutes and wonder....why it took you this long to think of this solution. 

Viva La France!

Most of the time, when I get into bed at night immediately before crashing I think “uh-oh!” I’ve made a mistake. Why? Because I lay down which means things aren’t going to happen. All domestic tasks seem to require my presence to be done. The kids will do the dishes, but I have to stay in the room doing something else. They’ll help with laundry if I’m folding too. However, if the phone rings or nature calls or a child in another room needs assistance, the children conscripted into working rabbit out of my line of sight the instant they think I won’t notice in real time.

I’ve taken to preemptive warning shots. “I expect to find you here when I get back in two minutes…still working.” When they complain that I am a tyrant, I put my arm in my coat and say, “I AM Napoleon.” I've explained that everywhere the general went, there was victory. The problem, was everywhere the general wasn’t.

But today I looked at the paperwork, the work work and the housework that I’ve put off and off and off and off, and I know what time it is. It’s later. Like looking at the scale and knowing that TODAY, one must start a diet, it’s that later time when I should get to it. There’s one problem.

I don’t wanna.

Currently, at least 12 loads sit atop that eight foot long battlefield. It has begun to sag slightly in the middle like a worn out horse. There are six loads in the cue, one in the wash, one atop the dryer and one in, and 11 laundry baskets half full of folded stuff. And yet I wonder, how is it then that their drawers are full of clothing and yet everyone needs help getting dressed? Supply lines are always a problem for large armies. Napoleon faced such obstacles too, I wonder if his laundry tables were concave.

Doing the things on the later list rots. I don’t like diets, budgets, time managers, daily planners, to-do lists or even that much planning ahead. I don't shop for Christmas before Thanksgiving, I'm just that way.

So staring at the table hobbled with laundry, I came to the realization, I’m tired of doing all the jobs that no one else wants, of being the dutiful eater of leftovers and complicit flusher of toilets, sponger of messes, payer of bills and doer of the pots and pans and not the easy parts of any chore. I don’t mind creaming the butter but I'd like to pour in the chocolate chips occasionally. I don't want to be Napoleon anymore.

The Laundry is my Waterloo, and the basement, the whole Russian frontier. The blizzard of paperwork in the fall of 2009 doesn’t help either.

Looking at all the things to do, I have just one question.

How soon can I get exiled to Elba?

Tune in tomorrow when I rant about why there aren't 12 labors of HERcules. Answer: She's not finished yet.