So as any parent knows, once you have children nothing is yours anymore. What's yours is your children's and what is your children's is your's. In my house that is a half truth. What's mine is my children's, what's Chuck's is still Chuck's. With 3 girls my things go missing all the time; I have found high heels in Emily's room being used as a bed for Barbie, on a recent cold day I went to reach into my jacket pocket for my gloves only to have my cold hands met by an empty pocket. Lately there is a whole subgroup of missing shit; grooming items. Now I know what you are all thinking; I have free and unlimited access to their bedrooms and bathrooms just go in and get your crap back. 1. Yes, I do have free and unlimited access to their rooms but, 2. Two-thirds of my children live as if they are auditioning for an upcoming episode of Hoarders, I take my life in my hands going into those deathtraps. I have a hunch I know where those U.S. cases of the Coronavirus that are of "unknown origin" originated. Have no fear though, the antidote to the Coronavirus lives within those 4 walls as well. The mold growing in their rooms is so abundant the CDC can cultivate enough penicillin to keep this pandemic in check. Thank Christ, Mike Pence can now stand down.
So let's take a little inventory of all the missing items, shall we?
My nail clippers were one of the first to go missing. I don't need them so much for my fingernails-they don't grow anyway but I do need them for my toes. I used to get pedicures on a regular basis but since having kids it is an expense I just can't justify. I did however invest in a decent pair of nail clippers, lest my toenails turn into talons. I know TLC airs a show about crazy addictions and from time to time there is someone with toe nails as long as Rapunzel's hair but, umm, yeah, NO! I personally subscribe to the belief that one's toe nails should never have the opportunity to grow past one's toe tip. Call me crazy but if I am snuggling with someone and they can scratch my head with their little piggies sh*t will go down real fast.
So back to my fingernails. Again, I used to get bi-weekly manicures before I popped out my kids and again, it is an expense that I just can't justify. So every Sunday while watching America's Funniest Videos I give myself a proper manicure. Well, that hasn't happened in a while. My cuticle tool is missing! I am sure it is being used to dig a wick out of a candle or to stir some concoction I find in their bathroom sink. I had the pleasure of cleaning their bathroom last weekend. I was on strike for about 6 months and refused to clean it. I broke down and finally did it because I was afraid our dog Mary Alice might contract some dreaded third world disease from drinking out of their toilet. The girls get typhoid, serves them right but once you add Mary to the equation all bets are off. I would lay down my life for that dog. It took hours and almost a full can of Comet, yup I use chemicals to clean, no vinegar and water here-I want my house to smell like a pristine operating room not a goddamn douche. I was almost done, I just had to clear the drain on the sink. I worked in an ER, I have seen it all; blood, guts, pus (my favorite-seriously), burnt flesh, brain matter but nothing, nothing could have prepared me for what I pulled out of their bathroom sink drain. The smell coming from the ball of gelatinous slime I pulled out made me dry heave so violently I think I may have broken a rib. I seriously considered sending it off to the CIA. The most hardened terrorist would give up their next plot the second that ball of death entered the room. Yes, it was that bad and mind you, I lived with a rancid, decaying hole in my belly for months after Emily was born. I thought the smell of my own rotting flesh was bad, that, that my friends was a bed of roses compared to this malodorous, noxious, sphere of necrosis. But I digress. Back to my DIY manicures. I bought a new nail polish and of course it just walked away. No one knew what happened to it. Well I knew where to look. I went straight to the Nail Polish Graveyard. Anyone with little girls most likely has such a graveyard. Bottles of once slick polish now look like a washed up queen after partying a little too hard at the Pride Parade. Dried up glitter dripping down the side of the bottle, the handle is crusted half in/half out of the bottle at such an angle to allow enough air inside to dry it out or the more horrifying brush stuck to the table next to the opened bottle. Either way they brush bristles will never be used again, they can't--they are clumped so tightly together that no amount of polish remover can penetrate them. Of course it couldn't be my $1.97 Wet & Wild polish, nope it had to be my $6.87 bottle of Sally Hansen. Doesn't seem like a huge expense but when you are paying for these lacquer funerals on the regular it adds up.
Another day I went looking for my Nair hair remover and of course it wasn't where it should have been. I set out on a one person search party. I found it in the girl's shower. It was the pump style bottle. Christ's sake that's all I need, one of my kids mistaking it for shampoo or cream rinse. Can you imagine if one of my kids came out of the shower looking like Steve Wilkos? I would try my best to be understanding, supportive and compassionate but you know what would come out instead? "Stand up, you don't deserve a chair" all while doubling over in uncontrollable laughter. Steve Wilkos fans will get that reference.
While looking for my Nair I found cold wax strips all rolled in a ball under their bathroom sink. It looks as if an attempt was made to use them. I would've paid money to be a fly on the wall when that all went down. To whichever of my girls that experimented with those; be grateful it isn't tank top and shorts season. Your cover would be blown when you show up to the BBQ with super raw legs and armpits that look like they are ready to be thrown on the grill.
So you can probably gather I was trying to winterize my legs; shaving ones legs is such an arduous chore. I hate it and truth be told, and I can almost guarantee I am not the only female to do this; in the winter I may or may not on more than one occasion shaved only the bottom 3 inches of my legs whilst skipping the rest of my upper leg. You know, shave just enough that will show when wearing pants and add 2 inches to be safe in the event you cross your legs and your pant leg rides up a bit. I am sure half of my readers are nodding their head knowingly. I am not a complete animal and to not run Chuck off completely I will Nair my legs a few times in the winter so I don't turn into a sasquatch, you're welcome Babe. Since the wax and Nair were gone I figured I would just shave but, alas my razor was missing. Well technically I still had the razor, just the set of replacement blades were missing. How the hell can one use just the blades with no handle? You don't need to be Olivia Benson to figure that one out. Whoever comes to dinner with a thousand tiny little slices on their fingertips will be the culprit. Guess I won't be serving finger foods any time soon.
My deodorant has gone MIA on a few occasions too. Please know I purchase my children their own deodorant and any other age appropriate personal hygiene/grooming tools they need or want so there is no real reason for them to take mine other than to drive me bat shit crazy. So I was at the store the other day and I picked up a new deodorant for myself; Secret Brand Coconut Breeze. Hey I figured, why not? Every time I wear it I will be transported to a deserted island and can have a brief escape from reality. Now, if you know me in real life you know I am not a fan of the heat. If it is over 50 degrees I am physically uncomfortable. I don't believe in much; ghosts, psychics, Bigfoot, Donald Trump is a stable genius, but I wholeheartedly believe in spontaneous human combustion and there may come a day soon that I just burst into flames. So unfortunately I have my sweating working against me. Instead of smelling like an ocean breeze on me, the coconut deodorant smells more like an old, dirty sand bucket you find in your trunk at the end of the summer with dried up snails and starfish in it. Still no drain rot but close to it.
The one thing missing that really ticked me off was my tweezers. They were missing for about a week and I swear to the walking, upright Gods it was as if I had Miracle Grow on my eyebrows. Everyone has that one crazy uncle with a rogue 3 inch hair sprouting from their brow. That was me. I was Uncle Morty. But that wasn't the half of it. Now that I am a woman of a particular age I have these gross, blond (really grey, but humor me) whiskers growing on my chin. I was without my tweezers for over seven days! I'm over here like Rip Van Winkle and to top it off my magnifying mirror I need because I'm blind as a bat is cracked in 3 places! So now I have 3 reflections, insult to injury when I look in my mirror I look like one of those biker dudes that parts their beard down the middle. For F's sake, leave my sh*t alone!! Tweezers are an important part of my life. I invested in the good ones, no Walmart Equate brand tweezers for me.--I went straight to the man, all the way up the food chain to the Tweezerman! I loved them, it was double ended and had the most perfect point to it. Sadly they never turned up. I had to replace them. They didn't have the ones I wanted and was forced to get the subpar ones they had. I tried them the other day and it was like trying to pull my eyebrows out with salad tongs. No grip, they kept slipping off the hair. So upsetting. I came very close to just shaving them off and buying the Tatbrow micro brow pen that keeps showing up on my Facebook feed. But since my razor blades are still missing I wasn't able to.
I just wish there was something of Chucks they would take, just so he could understand my frustration. I don't foresee this thievery ending anytime soon. I am thinking of investing in a loss prevention system for my bathroom, you know like the ones they have in stores. I will put little tags on all my stuff and when they try to leave my bathroom with it an alarm will go off. Though, I believe most of the thefts occur when I am not home so that won't work. Maybe I can design a system kind of like the Ring Doorbell system so when someone tries to enter or leave my bathroom it will ring my phone and I can see the culprit. I'm just blue skying here but maybe I can just cut out the middleman and straight up hire Shaq to guard my bathroom. Until then just call me Uncle Morty.
