The Girl and The Girls

Monday comes and goes. The babysitter is a roaring success. The kids call me the moment she leaves to tell me how much they adore her. The TV remained off the entire time. Pat did not play video games.  They played tennis, they played basketball. They played a board game. They told ghost stories. They talked about what their interests are and what they'd like to do together this summer. I get an email from her as the kids and I are sitting down to enjoy a family sized take out dinner. She gives a full report, asks questions, confirms some plans. I am shocked at how wonderful she is. I am waiting to learn that she is an axe murderer, really.

My kitchen is not exactly a success story of the same magnitude. I barely notice any changes. Maybe if I look really hard I can see fewer, yet newer, wires protruding from odd places. And maybe a little spackle smeared on a rough spot.  Oh, and to give credit where credit is due, there is evidence of some millwork.  And the plastic is down. I can walk through the kitchen without tripping over kitty who is obsessively chewing on the painters tape.

I decide to do a little much overdue laundry, lest my children begin to look like the cast of Oliver.

I walk to the basement and rest the basket across the corner of the drain tub so I can lift its contents and distribute it around the agitator in the washer.

And then I notice it.

There is a blob of something sticky and gluey looking in my drain tub.

No biggie. It is the only nearby working sink at the moment. There is bound to be a little goo left behind on occasion. 

But the blob tells me two things.

1 - Wally and his guys may not be getting much accomplished that is visible to the human eye, but they are definitely working.

2- They have made themselves at home in my basement, including the laundry area. 

It is this second notion that gives me the vapors.

As I turn to the immediate right, where just beyond the drier lies a triple hung, industrial strength clothesline, I see that I have left a grand assortment of bras drying on the line.

I think it is good policy, anytime you are letting strange men into your house to work, or if you are selling your home, to leave an intriguing if not confusing assortment of brassieres on display for all the potential visitors to see. The good, the bad, the ugly. The leopard push up that makes you look like Pamela Anderson. The sports bra you wear to work out in. The pit stained, discolored, pilly one that you wear only when you are mowing the lawn. The Spanx. The Girls Weekend collection. The working man's bras.  All have their place in the lingerie drawer. But somehow a stranger will find them novel.

I've really outdone myself.

Ants. Mice. Petrified holiday sweets. A baffling assortment of bras inexplicably on display. 

I am sure Wally is writing a blog of his own, maybe calling it "Crazy On The Inside: Perfectly Pulled Together People Whose Home Interiors Give Them Away."