Laundry is the herpes of household chores.
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No matter how you attack it, it never completely goes away.
What could possibly make it worse?
Let me tell you.
What you need to know about me is that I have an autistic 5-year-old son who recently completed potty training, and is obsessed with H2O. Water is his boo, his jam, his passion.
I know because I have attended several impromptu Toliet-Palooza festivals and floods he has hosted inside our bathrooms and kitchen. As fun as they were, we now must keep these doors locked, which presents another problem.
Nathan struggles with speech, so he can’t tell me when he has to use the potty. Therefore, I must be a diligent observer of his body language or face an inconvenient pool of urine or worse.
When I’m outnumbered by the kids 3 to 1, its hard be the toilet whisperer.
Last Saturday was one of those times.
Between the 8-year old’s nonstop narration of literally everything and the 16-year old’s non-stop complaining about the narration, I not only missed his “pee-pee dance” but also his “download squat” and he relieved himself on the kitchen floor. To a “typically” developing family, this may sound shocking, but let me assure you, we are not typical.
As a matter of fact, things of this nature had become so commonplace that I didn’t even think about it again until the next day when I was unloading the dryer, and the odor hit me so hard that I became nauseated.
I just wasn’t prepared for it.
I was ready for Downy Lavender Serenity.
And there’s nothing serene about the scent of stool.
Confused, yet focused on the task at hand, I continued to pull the last few items from the dryer, and that’s when I saw it.
One small tan ball in the center of my Kenmore.
Except this was no ordinary ball.
It was crap.
There was a ball of human dejection inside my dryer.
As usual, the narrator was by my side, so I sent her for cleaning supplies.
Cautiously, I stuck my head inside to survey the damage.
It looked like Jackson Pollack had painted my dryer with a #2 brush.
Had I washed and dried actual poop?
If I did, would it still smell?
Maybe I had really and truly lost my mind.
When I’m about to go psycho, I start to talk to myself out loud.
My eight-year-old daughter was listening intently.
In addition to being the family narrator, she is also a junior detective.
As I cleaned the vessel of my most despised chore, Nancy Drew began to question me about the “crime scene.”
She had reappeared donning a newsboy cap carrying a pad and pencil ready to “solve the case.”
How many pieces did you find, ma’am?
Me: Just the one.
Can you describe the smell?
Me: Yes. Yes, I can. It smells like straight up sewage.
Do you think the smell came from Daddy’s clothes or Savannah’s?
Me: At this point, there is no telling.
You know Savannah is disgusting. Do you think she should be grounded?
Me: Probably for something, but not for this.
Can you tell me if there were any dead bodies?
Me: WHAT???
Ok. Game over. This is what happens when you let the babysitter watch Law & Order, I think, and make a mental note to change the parent codes on the DVR. ASAP.
I had enough. I was losing my mind. Staring at the piles of stained Clorox wipes littered around five baskets of unfolded garments had flipped my freak out switch and I was ready to blow. I no longer had the mental capacity to play along.
NO, There are no dead bodies, but somebody is going to be in big trouble if they don’t tell me how this happened! Now, let me ask you a question!
DO YOU HAVE ANY CLUE HOW THIS ENDED UP IN THIS DRYER?
I waved the petite ball of excrement in front of her like a mad woman because I was a mad woman.
I was about to get an explanation, or I was going to the nuthouse for laundering poop.
Hmmmmm. Let’s see.
She started tapping her chin with the pencil.
Well, I wasn’t gonna tell you, but when me and Nathan were playing with Lucy in the laundry room, she pooped.
Lucy is a dog. That wasn’t allowed to be in there.
Then she ate it.
Dear Lord…I can tell this is going to get gross; please grant me the patience to make it through. Amen.
But then she pooped again. And I went to get stuff to clean it, and when I came back, I caught Nathan playing with it. He probably threw some into the dryer before I could take it away. Sorry.
Mystery Solved.
I guess that keeps me out of the nuthouse. For now.
It doesn’t make doing laundry any more palatable, though.
The next time you’re doing the herpes of housework, keep this in mind.
It could be worse.
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Heather Burnett
Tinybeans Voices ContributorHeather is a SAHM of 3 who blogs, over thinks, and usually regrets it when she volunteers. When she isn't longing for a live in maid, she can be found locked inside her dirty bathroom eating chocolate.
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