what happens when Spawn is gone and my game isn’t working? (g2)

Apparently, I get fucking productive.

I don’t mean like catch up on the mail and pay some bills either.. I mean, sleep 7 hours in two days, bleach the fuck out of everything so intensely I had to stand outside for an hour so my eyes would stop burning, productive.

Spawn of course texted intermittently throughout the entire weekend. I got a few pictures from time to time so I could get a sense of inclusion. They even won first prize in their school competition. They had an epic weekend. I also shared my own weekend…

me:”my game isn’t working…”

Spawn:”LOL”

me:”shut up! you realize when I get bored, I go through all your shit, right?”

Spawn:”NOOOOOO!”

Spawn does not like their bed. I’d offered it to a coworker of mine who’d lost everything when we had some flooding a while back. I started dismantling this bed. It took two grown men to put this thing together inside the room, I have it about 1/3 broken down and realized I didn’t have the right tool to go any further.

I cleaned and reorganized the pantry, the bathroom is spotless, the spices have been polished and refilled or tossed out if expired. the fridge has no weird smelling containers from unknown dates anymore (I ate them because I was too lazy to cook for one), I can see my kitchen table… I didn’t know it was that color.

I filled a streetside garbage bin in a day and I could have filled three more just based on how much crap I wanted to purge. Soon….

The dirty clothes have been gathered to run to the laundromat, the donation box is in the car. Clothes have been bagged for the friend of Spawn’s we hand down to. Clean clothes are folded or hung up.

I didn’t go so domestic I fluffed a fucking pillow or anything, but it was damn close. I had been relying an awful lot on Spawn to get remedial sweeping and mopping done after school and I’ve come to realize just how bad they suck at it. Do kids just not realize rooms have fucking corners? Or that large things need to be moved because the floor still exists under it?

I picked up a basket from a part of the floor it didn’t belong in, it had just been left there, there was a basket-shaped line around where it sat that had a different shade than the rest of the floor.

One of Spawn’s bigger projects was to take all the pots and dishes out of the cabinets, bleach and wipe down the shelves and put everything back. More suckage… its like it had never been done. The kind of stuff I got out of there belonged on Ripley’s.

I went back to washing the dishes solo some time ago simply because in the time it took me to wash 2 sinkfuls, Spawn might have 4 glasses finished. I’m started to get the feeling I’m getting played. I welcome any tips on this point, by the way.

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Spawn was due back about dinner time on Sunday, so I arranged for a few of their friends to be at the house for pizza and cookie cake when they got back. Spawn doesn’t do parties, but three friends and a console game were enough to keep them pretty entertained.

When I picked up Spawn, I kind of got them in headlock and just sniffed them for a bit. When Spawn got uncomfortable because I wasn’t letting go, I finally begrudgingly drove home.

Spawn:”What’s that van doing here?”

me:”dunno.”

Spawn:”………. right……”

Spawn ran to the door and peeked in their own front door like they were scared of what was inside. We sang Happy Birthday as badly and loudly as we could muster, the kids had a blast playing games and doing their thing, I got to catch up a little with the parentals. Spawn got a ton of art stuff, so I could see the excitement and ideas just clicking like a freight train while they looked these over.

I was a little disappointed with the lack of inspiration on the birthday cookie. I’d chosen none of the presets, as usual, and just put “they like to draw comics and play cello; like foxes, penguins and the color blue. whatever inspiration that gives you, run with it.”….

They did a damn palette. A tiny one.

Where has the sense of originality gone in this country anyway? If it had been a fox mauling a penguin in a cookie desert while a cartoon Spawn played in the background, that would have been epic, but no! One tiny brush, a tiny palette and blue writing.

Spawn being home, my bleach rampage finally wore itself out. My exhaustion came on quite suddenly too. I was at the point where I wanted to just tell everyone to get out and pass out on the couch. I don’t even think I waited for the kids to leave before I was in my pajamas. Thank goodness for school nights.

Man, I need a weekend…