Shoes

Six Reasons To Lose My Mind

Time for a frustrated dad rant. Where the hell are these things? Any of them?

I am forever looking for something which is beyond amazing because at the same time I am stepping on everything. Have I eaten a moldy breakfast cake with hallucinogenic chemicals? This is a strange trip and I am laughing and talking to myself while I type. Inspired by insanity. 

I understand that keeping up with laundry, dishes, and toys is a numbers game. Six total people. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, baths, bedtime. Six spoons, twelve forks, six rags, six towels, six outfits, six pajamas. Every day. I have ranted about this before I’m sure but the landslide of frustration gets to be humorous.

1) PANTS

Where are everyone’s pants? No one seems to want to wear pants. No one can find pants for school. The pants we do find don’t fit or have stains. We are always washing pants. Loads of pants. I’ve checked inside the dryer, no pants. Now I have trouble finding my own pants. What do pants look like? Are you my pants?

Inside of the dryer. No pants. That was my last guess.

Inside of the dryer. No pants. That was my last guess.

2) SILVERWARE

We need additional silverware sets. Our forks are numerous enough for two meals. We need to do a load and a half of dishes per day. The forks never have a chance to get fully clean. I stop the dishwasher and pull out the half washed forks and finish rinsing them in the sink so we have something to eat with at dinner. Then after dinner we put up the dishwasher of clean things and surprise our only dishes are dirty forks. You might wonder about plates but we went to paper plates a long time ago. Unless we don’t have paper plates. Then we might eat dinner in large bowls or on paper towels. I would feel worse about this if the kids actually ate anything I prepared. Ever.

3) SHOES

I trip over shoes constantly. They are everywhere yet finding a pair for anyone to wear out of the house is impossible. My heart breaks for ancient sailors who died crossing the sea for lack of fresh water. As I float around in this sea of boots, flip flops, and tennis shoes I suddenly feel like I have scurvy. I am not above grabbing two shoes of the same size and forcing them to wear a mismatch to Wal-Mart. I have been doing it with socks for years. I think it is a trend now actually and I think we started it. My disorganized laziness has propagated into a tween fad.

The shoe phenomenon is even more confusing to me because all math and statistics break down. For example, at any one time there are 7,689 individual shoes floating around my house. That is obviously an odd number so at the best one is a loner and we have 3,690-ish pairs of shoes. Worst case is that we have a full 15,371 pairs of shoes that have lost a mate. I think the second option feels more correct. But the damn light up shoes never get lost. They are always at the ready and begging to throw me into an epileptic seizure if the yelling and high blood pressure don’t beat them to it.

4) Baby Wipes

Before I begin I need to issue a warning. Specifically to my Grandma, there is nothing proud about the text that will follow here. I love you and I want you to continue to respect me so let’s make a deal. You skip the next paragraph and I will put a picture below with a thumbs up. Start back after the picture. Okay?

Promise?

Thank you.

*Deep Breath* Where are the fucking wipes! I saw them thirty seconds ago! Which one of you handsy bastards did it this time?!?

We have emergency rations stashed all over the house for emergencies. Since the youngest one has taken to grabbing handfuls of self-made Play-Doh (poop) if we turn our eyes for five seconds we have to be ready. (Sidenote: Playing the cooties game in elementary school has real-world application later in life.) It never fails that someone has played pretend and wasted 63 wipes on a naked Barbie or lined the piano with wipe wallpaper. Naked Barbie doesn’t even need wipes, the five layers of Chapstick that you stole out of your mother’s purse and crushed into Barbie’s face will protect her from dry rot and UV rays for the next hundred years. Quit losing the wipes or I am going to lose my mind.

 

All Clear - No More F*Bombs

All Clear – No More F*Bombs

Welcome back.

5) DVD’s

Honestly, why do we even take them home anymore. We should open the package in the parking lot of the store and just fling the disc across the parking lot, take the insert out of the front cover for the baby to chew, and then jump up and down on what’s left of the case. We will pick everything up, tape it together and place it on the shelf with the other unwatchable mirrored coasters that we call movies.

Yeah that should play just past the intro-scene so we can spend thirty minutes waiting to see if it will keep going.

Yeah that should play just past the intro-scene so we can spend thirty minutes waiting to see if it will keep going.

6) PACIFIERS AND JUICE CUPS

Similar to socks and shoes, these items appear abundant but it is a mirage. Pacifiers are everywhere about five minutes before bedtime. The girls wear them like rings and hang them around their necks. They look like a bunch of white, midget groupies for Run DMC or Flavor Flav. Then bedtime rolls around and we can’t find one that isn’t riddled with teeth holes. Juice cups are lost, milk bombs, or the little plastic insert fell into the heater of the dishwasher and melted making the entire cup useless. Nobody comment that juice cups should be hand washed because honestly who has time for that crap.


Wow. Thank you guys. I feel much better. Feel free to comment your mystery items below and share this with your friends. Together we can solve the mystery.

To everyone who feels worthless at finding things. My life is one giant “Where’s Waldo”. The answer is “Not Here.” You’re welcome.

-Underdaddy to the rescue.