"Were they in the bureau drawer where they're supposed to be?" I ask. This is a trick question. NOTHING is in the bureau drawer that's supposed to be there. Nope, that bureau drawer holds one half of each pair of socks she's ever owned, underwear she outgrew four years ago, the leftover birthday party favors from her last birthday, an overdue library book, an assortment of hair doo-dads, worn-out dance tights, a couple parts of bathing suits (tops without bottoms and bottoms without tops) and something that might once have been edible, but I'm afraid to ask.
But it's a dumb question. Having something in its proper place is irrelevant in her world. "Um, no. I had them on the end of my bed."
"The one you slept in?"
"Yes, Mom, the one I slept in," she says, delivering her line as though she's just discovered I was recently lobotomized.
"And what did you do with them when you went to bed?" Sounds like a reasonable question to me – the family property manager. In return for this perfectly civilized inquiry, I receive a look that drips scorn.
"I didn't do anything with them," she says, her patience at the breaking point.
OK – let me get this straight. I pick her clothes up off the bathroom floor. I lug them downstairs. I wash them, dry them, fold them and put them on her bed and she sleeps with them there because she can't be bothered to put them away? I've got to find a job that pays better than this – being the handmaiden to a pre-teen is rapidly changing my attitude toward capital punishment.
"Yes, dear," I say. "I do know where they are. I wasn't kidding about wearing them. I sneaked into your room after you went to bed and put them on and wore them all over the house," I finish the dishes as she of the long, thin legs stands there contemplating me, a woman with thighs like Christmas hams.
I smile wickedly. "You might as well give them to me outright. They look like a hippo wore them." I gloat as I dry the dishes. She harrumphs and storms back to her room muttering darkly.
I pull some clothes from the dryer and start folding them as my son bursts in from outside. He disappears into his room, surfacing a moment later with a big scowl on his face.
"Mom, what did you do with my Mega-Transforming-Ugly-Expensive-Plastic-Monster toy?"
"The one that looks like a blue anteater only with lips?" I ask.
"Yeah. That one. What did you do with it?"
"The last time I saw it, your sister had it," I say and he takes off upstairs to confront his sister.
Heh, heh, heh.
