“I took my family on a field trip once. I told them to get dressed, brush their hair, put on good, firm walking shoes, and gather up whatever they needed to be comfortable. Once I gathered them in the living room, made sure they were all set and ready to go, we embarked on our adventure. Straight to the dishwasher.
For a minute, they were confused. I smiled at their quandary. I had evil, secret thoughts of happiness in my black heart. I could see the look of disgust on their beautiful faces as they slowly put my scheme together in their heads. The clearer it became, their faces changed, and their arms folded. I gave them a crooked grin. I probably winked.
My voice dripped with sarcasm as I pointed at the contraption. ‘This my loves, is a dishwasher.’ Doing my best Vanna White impression, I continued. ‘You see, you can open this door and it just fold rights down. You can put dishes inside of it. You can put cups inside of it. You can put silverware inside of it. You can do all of this without barely breaking a sweat.’ They collectively rolled their eyes. ‘And then, if there are clean dishes inside, you can just remove those and put them in a cabinet.’
我的解释很彻底。在沉重的叹息和小脚结结巴巴之间，它受到了好评。一个星期。我什至没有一堆红色的塑料杯子来喝酒。
Then, one night, I came home from work. A long, 12-hour shift. Exhausted, I stumbled into the bedroom, changed from my work pants to my yoga pants and tied my hair into a messy bun. I wanted a hot bath. I wanted some sleep. But, first, a nice glass of wine to take the edge of the day off.
Oh, how I wished at the moment I walked into the kitchen that I actually used my yoga pants for yoga. Oh, how I wished I knew how to do relaxation breathing. The only time I ever learned how to ‘breathe through’ something was when I was in labor and by the time my cervix was opened to a 4, there was no calm breathing, just screaming and f-bombs. This situation was no different.
当我闲逛到厨房并看到它时，恐怖音乐播放了。您知道吗，当一些连环杀手在夏令营的湖边刺伤受害者时，他们在电影中使用的歌曲曲目？我的眼睛注视着它。我脖子上的静脉开始隆起。我的血压射击到不安全的水平。
十七，是的，该死的水槽里有17杯。不是一个。不是五个。七跨的青少年。显然，我儿子决定清理他的房间。我不确定他为什么这么爱巧克力牛奶，但是我敢肯定，从外观上看，有一头孤独的牛站在一个田野里，痛苦地哭泣，牛奶枯竭的乳头酸痛。我试图冷静下来。我真的做了。但是，不是就在一周前我展示了如何将它们放入洗碗机中的小问题吗？
‘Ok,’ I told myself. ‘Breathe. Breathe like they showed you in Lamaze.’Hee, hee, ha, ha, ho, ho.‘Maybe the dishwasher is full. Maybe he had to go rescue a baby animal somewhere. Maybe he twisted his arm carrying it all to the sink and he had to go to the emergency room.’ I flung open the dishwasher. Empty. EMPTY. I screamed.
我失去了我的sh*t。
I had had it.
I was done.
I slammed the dishwasher shut. I called out for him. I called out for anybody who would listen. His bedroom door opened, and he ran down the hall.
‘What’s wrong? What happened? Why are you screaming?’ He was worried.
Fire burned in my eyes.
He backed away.
I pointed to the sink.
‘Oh yeah, I cleaned out my room.’
我的眼睛隆起。‘WhyareDishesnotinthedishwasher吗？”是的，我说那是一个单词。
‘I dunno.’
‘You DON’T know?’ He shrugged his shoulders. He might have smiled. ‘Alright, that’s it. That’s IT! I will show you ‘I don’t know.’ You’re going to be sorry. I have HAD IT.’
I don’t even know what he said, if he even said anything. I blew past him and into the garage, grabbing the first storage bin I could find. I wrestled with it while I dragged it through the laundry room and over the heap of towels that somebody left on the floor. By the time I got back to the kitchen, he was gone, and in his place was my husband.
‘Are you ok, dear?’ He quipped.
‘No-I-am-not-fricking-ok.’
He knew better than to say another word. He watched, silently, while I packed the dishes. He said nothing as I loaded the container with our plates, bowls, cups, silverware. Everything. I packed the entire kitchen.
When I was done, he addressed it. With his eyes wide open, he leaned in and whispered, ‘What are they supposed to eat off of?’
我转身离开并为住在我家中的每个孩子挖出一个地方，然后挖出一个地方。一盘，一碗，一杯，一个银器设置。当我将物品放在柜台上时，我感到非常平静，让自己感到惊讶。我转身看着他，然后在讲话之前停下来。我清了清嗓子。
‘There.’
我不记得是我还是我的丈夫向孩子们解释了这一点。可能是他。我敢肯定，我已经从墙上撞了头。当我后来我走过他们时，没有人说什么，当他们再次饿时，他们正在清理他们的一道菜。我的儿子从杯子里浸透了乳白色电影时什么也没说。我确定他们很害怕。甚至我的丈夫也一定很害怕，因为几天后，我发现他站在咖啡机上，将咖啡倒入一个小的粉红色，玩具茶杯中，他一定会在我女儿的戏剧中发现。
“你在做什么？”我感到困惑。
‘我从来没有分配。’
I found the man a coffee cup. In his car. In a cardboard box where he stored them after he took them to work. 25 of them. On occasion, I would find that box on the front porch, like he was leaving me a gift. Well, buddy, you can’t have them all, but you can have my ‘Tinkerbell’ coffee cup. I think it eventually became his favorite.
Maybe my youngest daughter was too young to remember this incident, because just today,yes just today,她问我是否可以为厨房打扫厨房。等待。您的意思是您想清理烂摊子，让我付钱吗？钱？而不是给您屋顶和食物吃饭？不。
My husband was better with the kids. Way more patient. Much more forgiving.
Until that one night.
I don’t know why, but when my kids would need to get something out of a cabinet that was mounted on the wall, they would climb up onto the counter, open both cabinet doors and, in an effort to hold themselves up, they would often (and it better have been subconsciously) pull back on the doors to balance themselves. I never thought much about it until, one night, I heard a crash and subsequent screaming.
Oh, for the love of all that’s Holy, what now?
我跟着尖叫的声音,漂亮的进行dent that nobody was dead since he was still yelling. What I found was my son, on the counter in the laundry room, with all of the contents of what used to be in the cabinet on the floor below him. Art supplies. Glue. Glitter. Paper. Pens. Popsicle sticks. Batteries. A random video game controller. Halloween blood. A ski pass. A bunch of freaking junk I stashed up there. And on top of him, the cabinet, which luckily, when it came down, hit the wall behind him and, thankfully, didn’t crush him. Yes, friends, after all those years of hanging on it, it finally came unhinged, pretty much like me. I knew I had to help him although I did quickly calculate how long he might be able to stay in that position, holding up the cabinet, before he fell. I took position under him, held up the cabinet myself so he could get out, and what do you think he did?
He left me there.
So, at that point, I am holding up the cabinet, trying to balance my footing on some old phone book on the ground. I have one free hand. Barely. I manage to reach my cell phone and type out a quick message to my husband, who was at work. As a police officer.
'需要帮忙。'
I meant to follow up with something like, ‘I just need you to lift something.’ Or, ‘The cabinet fell, and I can’t get it back up.’ Or, ‘Just need your help really quick.’ That would have been great but, as soon as I finished the first text, of course the phone fell, on the floor, out of my reach and there was no way I was letting go of the cabinet to try to get it. And, for some odd reason, nobody came running to help me. But, maybe, that was because in all the commotion, somehow the laundry room door shut, and nobody could hear my muffled screams. My husband never texted me back. After about 5 minutes, I was sure I was going to meet my untimely death when the cabinet came crashing down on my head. This wasn’t the way I wanted to go. No, I had big plans. At least let me be trampled while drunk on vodka, dancing in the streets during a Carnival in Rio de Janeiro or something. Not this. Not crushed by a cabinet. In the laundry room. Are you kidding me? Dying in the laundry room? The laundry room has already sucked out my soul and now it wants to take my life, too?
就在我要放弃的时候，我听到了。车库门开口。有人在家。有人要救我。车库后门打开前有一个停顿。就像在那里的任何人都在计划一些事情。来找出来，他们是。
Because just then, just as the back door swung open, the front door did as well, and the deep voices of many men came ringing through the house.
'警察！警察！'
You have got to be sh*tting me.
是的，伙计们。我应该完成该文本。
当他们在洗衣房里找到我时，拿着橱柜里面有东西，整个地板上都忍不住笑了。我穿着睡衣。我的头发在我的脸上掉下来。我很累。我被困在纯粹的地狱中。我什至没有化妆。他们拍了拍我丈夫的后背，祝他一切顺利。我丈夫没说一句话。没有一个词。没有一个笑。 Not one sound.
He and his buddy lifted it off. His friend was trying to help without giggling. That was working until the last little bits of glitter came tumbling down on my head when they moved it.
My husband still didn’t break a smile. I tried to give him sad, puppy eyes, but still, nothing. They carefully placed the cabinet on the floor in the kitchen.
Oh, how I wish I had given him a better coffee cup.
说到咖啡杯,它工作。它确实。Because a month after I packed up the kitchen, I was lying in bed, watching mindless reality shows, when my son came in, sat down and quietly told me he had a question for me.
“我必须做什么才能赚回ks?’
I composed a list of chores in my head as rainbows appeared in my room and unicorns danced around in delight.
Yes. My work here is done.”
This story was submitted tobeplay网络一直不畅by戴安娜登记册of Meridian, Idaho. Her book, “My Kid Is an Asshole, and So Is My Dog” is now available in print and kindle.You can follow her work on her authorFacebook page。自己提交故事这里并在免费新闻通讯中订阅我们的最佳故事这里。
Read more of Diana’s hilarious stories of parenting a teen:
“这些太酷了！”她拿着腰包。是的，一个脆弱的腰包！’妈妈与十几岁的女儿一起歇斯底里的购物游览
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