A Very Peculiar Saturday

Scene: Me cleaning behind the couch.
(Stop laughing!! This is fiction. I can pretend to clean behind the couch!!)

"What's this back here?" I mumble to myself as I reach back and pull more crap out from the far reaches of the netherworld behind the furniture.

It looks to be a plastic bottle of some sort. Is it something from the play kitchen? I thought I got rid of all that stuff ages ago! It's got weird green and gold designs on it. It doesn't look like anything I've ever bought before. I hope there's nothing in it. I was quite excited to outgrow the "sippy cup of cheese-ified milk under the bed" stage.

I take the bottle into the kitchen to open just in case there is something in it and I have to dump it out or clean a mess. The lid seems to be stuck.  I dig through the drawers to find the jar opener. I know it's in this drawer somewhere. Ugh! Never mind!!

I bang the lid on the counter ever so gently. Tap. Tap. Tap. Crack! Doggone it! Now I've got a mess in the kitchen. What is this stuff? It smells sweet and slightly tangy. Like peaches in the summertime. It's not sticky, or really all that messy, actually. After a quick wipe with a rag, the mess is all gone, even what splashed on my shirt. The bottle is empty, though, so I toss it in the recycling bin and head back out to the living room to finish cleaning.

"Mommy!  Look what we found!" giggles Frances. The kids are apparently taking a break from their screen time and congregating in the living room. They've dug out the rest of the toys from behind the couch and are happily playing with them though, so I put the couch where it was and get out the vacuum.

"Can I do that?" ask Benjamin. That goofy kid loves playing with the vacuum!

Not a vacuum, just a cute picture

"Sure, whatever. Just let me know when you're done so I can go back over it."

I head to the bathroom to do some clean-up in there, but Henry is using the toilet. I start putting some laundry in the basket to take it downstairs to start a load of washing. Surprisingly when I get downstairs, there isn't that much down there. I guess I got further ahead than I thought. There must be a ton upstairs to fold. I swap loads: clean stuff into a basket, wet stuff into the dryer and a new load into the washer. I manage to have just enough room to finish everything that's down here.

Grabbing the basket of clean clothes, which happens to be all towels, I head upstairs to add it to the pile on the bed so I can start folding. When I get to the bedroom I find Ken, just finishing up all the other laundry I had left there.

"Do these go in the second drawer or the third drawer?" he asks, holding up a pair of my jeans.

"Ummm..whichever one has more room, I guess." I answer in confusion. Not only did he fold all the laundry, he's putting mine away. Not one to question industry in my family, I dump out the towels and together we quickly fold them and get them put away. I don't mind folding laundry when it's all rectangles that go in the same place!

With the laundry done, I head back to the bathroom to see if Henry's done.

"Mommy, I accidentally made a mess on the toilet, so I cleaned it up. Can I use this too" he asks, brandishing the scrubby wand.

"OK, sure, I guess so." I reply slowly. Is my son really asking permission to clean the toilet??

Bewildered, I past the vacuum in the living room and hear a strange sound in the dining room. I walk, hesitatingly towards the sound, unsure of what I will find.

I peer through the doorway and Frances is just putting the last toy into the bin. I pause. Should I ask her what she's doing or just let it go? The curiosity gets to me and I have to ask: "What are you doing, Sissy?"

"Those toys we found behind the couch went with a set of other stuff, so I came in here to look for the rest. Something else was in my way, so I started to get that where it belonged and I guess one thing led to another and I just re-organized all the toys."

"MOMMY!!" yells Ben from the living room. "I finished with the vacuum, but I can't move Daddy's chair!"

I start to head that way, but Henry comes dashing in. "I'll do it!" he laughs and together he and Ben shift the chair so Ben can clean underneath it.

I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed at this point. I was just planning a few light cleaning tasks for this Saturday morning, but I've barely done any work and now the whole house is clean. The only thing I really accomplished was finding that small bottle behind the couch, and I made a mess of that. Something strange is going on.

Heading towards the couch to sit and think for a moment, I am sidetracked by a knock at the door. It's the neighbor from next door.

"Hey! I forgot to let you know that John and I are headed out of town for a week. We're actually taking the cats this time, so you don't need to watch them, but we wanted to let you know we'd be gone. Also, we had these sandwiches left over from a party tray last night and we don't want them to go bad. Would you and the kids want them for lunch?"

"Sure! Thanks! Have a great trip!" I say, as I shut the door on yet another odd occurrence. "Hey guys, you want lunch?"

With that small announcement, the kids rush to the kitchen to grab plates, cups, and silverware. I didn't even get the chance to ask and now they're running over me to set the table. Ken comes in from the bedroom and sits down at the table.

"I just changed the sheets and put away that last basket of stuff." he says as the kids sit down and say their blessing. I'm feeling a bit off, and as I start to load my plate with food, I hear a loud buzzing sound. I can't quite figure out where it's coming from and things are starting to go hazy. I turn my head to the side and squish my eyes closed tighter.

"Why is the alarm still set on a Saturday??" Ken mumbles and he gets up to turn it off.

"Ugh! Sorry, I forgot to turn it off. Whatever, I was going to do some housework today anyway," I tell him as I struggle to get out of bed. "I just had the strangest dream, though."

"About what?"

"You know, I don't really remember now. It's all kinda hazy."

And I get up more quickly than I had planned because I can hear the argument starting in the boys' room. I rush in there to head things off and I can already tell this day is not going to go how I planned. They are both upset because they have no clean pants to wear today. I guess I'll be doing a bunch of laundry then. I had planned on tackling some deep cleaning in the living room, but I guess that will have to wait until next weekend. No big deal. What could that possibly hurt?

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Welcome to a Secret Subject Swap. This week 14 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts. 

Here are links to all the sites now featuring Secret Subject Swap posts.  Sit back, grab a cup, and check them all out. See you there:

http://www.BakingInATornado.com                          Baking In A Tornado

http://berghamchronicles.blogspot.com/              The Bergham Chronicles

http://www.thediaryofanalzheimerscaregiver.com/   The Diary of an Alzheimer’s Caregiver http://dinoheromommy.com/                     Dinosaur Superhero Mommy

http://www.southernbellecharm.com                        Southern Belle Charm

http://notthatsarahmichelle.blogspot.com                   Not That Sarah Michelle

http://mybrainonkids.net                                           My Brain on Kids

http://thelieberfamily.com                              The Lieber Family Blog

http://batteredhope.blogspot.com                     Never Ever Give Up Hope

http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com                   Someone Else’s Genius

http://thethreegerbers.blogspot.ch/          Confessions of a part time working mom

http://spatulasonparade.blogspot.com/             Spatulas on Parade

http://www.angrivatedmom.wordpress.com                The Angrivated Mom

http://climaxedtheblog.blogspot.com                           Climaxed

My subject is "You have a bottle of pure Luck, but you have to use it quickly.  Otherwise it rots and becomes Bad Luck."  It was submitted by http://www.someoneelsesgenius.com.