I believe my family has somehow gotten hold of a Megamind inspired ray gun that renders messes invisible to all eyes but mine in this house. I’m not sure. It’s truly amazing how people can walk over the piles and through the mess to play in the yard they go! And, I’m not talking about a little pile of powdered sugar from a runaway donut hole. I’m talking about a large, furry blanket they have spread out on the floor to have a picnic, 75,000 play food items, cookware, baskets, grocery shopping cart and a partridge in a pear tree. You would have to be either very tall to step over this mess or legally blind to not see it. Yet, my family proceeds about their business of arguing about who gets the last of the blueberries or how “Emmeline has that hula hoop and it’s not fair since it is soooooooooooooo not hers and I was playing with it ‘lasterday’ when I was three.” (Lena to English translation: Lasterday = sometime in the past but not sure when). Somehow they can continue on as if the mayhem simply doesn’t exist.
I, on the other hand, can’t focus on anything but this chaos. I have a myopic vision of this creature taking over my house as I’m stupefied, staring at its monstrosity as it begins to crawl into the other rooms and up the staircase. Slithering, shifting into a beast of epic proportions. I want to hide under the picnic blanket beneath the plastic produce department and keep my eyes closed until it disappears and I escape unscathed. But, I am alone in this battle. And I must fight to keep my house. The kids skip outside, oblivious to my torment. My screams of “LENA AND EMMELINE PICK UP THIS MESS OR I WILL THROW IT ALL IN THE GARBAGE!” go unheard. I realize this leviathan must also have powers that block out sound.
I muster all of my courage, crawling through the carnage of a tea set that met its untimely demise. The overturned grocery cart provides refuge to a cash register - its entrails strewn everywhere. I stifle a retch. Armed with a Rubbermaid tote bin, I methodically begin to disarm my worthy adversary. It weakens, as I render it defenseless by storing the mixing bowls, Melissa and Doug birthday cake pieces, and some coffee pot cleverly hidden in the magazine basket. Finally, the hide of my foe is folded up and put away as a signal to others not to mess with me. The hardwood floors cry tears of joy at being saved. No, wait, that’s a juice box that's been stepped on.
I emerge, triumphant in my hard won battle. My shirt is torn, my arms bloodied but I have reclaimed my living room. I do a small victory dance (and then quickly stop because my jeans are apparently designed for a 13-year-old waif and threaten to expose me to the neighbors). I collapse on to the couch, oblivious to the half-eaten strawberry that I'm sitting on. I take a long sip of my coffee, basking in the glow of supremacy. And that’s when begins to dawn on me that while I was conquering the picnic from Hell, the Barbies have become demonically possessed. I will now cross over to perform an exorcism in the Three Story Dream Townhouse. And, I must do so without a single pair of pink Marabou high heeled slippers. Well played, nemesis, well played.
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