Murphy's Revenge

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If you are squeamish, or are lucky enough to be eating a danish and enjoying some coffee, you might want to skip this post.  Don't say I didn't warn you...

There is a lesser reported Murphy's Law of parenting.  It covers the relationship between a freshly purged and cleaned child's room and how quickly and how disgusting it can become.

Last week was fall break.  I cleaned out dressers, closets, mattress pads, pillows, sheets, blankets, toys, books.  It was a full boy's-room purge.  What was I thinking?

Nature abhors a... clean room?

My 19 yo commutes to college and has a bunk in his little brother's room.  He also freelances as a grip in production.  Yesterday morning he came out of his room still wearing his clothes from the day before.  "Hey Mom, the music video shoot was a lot of fun, but I got home pretty late.  It was in an old meatpacking plant that's been closed down for years- the architecture was interesting, but boy was it dirty, the dust was inches thick and was starting to turn back into soil."  He picked up an english muffin and continued talking.

At this point my brain stuck on the fact that my son had slept in his nasty work clothes; I was wondering how to reenact the decontamination scene from Silkwood.  And my son wonders why I sometimes don't pay attention to what he is saying.

I thought I had fulfilled Murphy's law.  But I underestimated it.

This morning I played a well know and well despised game of "Horror Hunting."  It's that lovely game that begins when a young child has been taken ill in the night, from one end or the other, and has subsequently walked through the house in search of assistance.

The rules of Horror Hunting are simple:

• clean and comfort said child
• backtrack their trail looking for artifacts of their passing
• you must maintain a loving composure
• you must avoid finding "artifacts" with your bare feet
• gagging sounds are not allowed