Cover Me! I'm Going In!!!

I have only one child, The Boy, and I truly adore him. But let's face it. Men are pigs. We all know this. They know it. And they don't care. In fact many of them are proud of their slovenly ways and will even on occasion expend more energy to be messy than it takes to be clean. I think it hearkens back to our caveman existence and the ritualistic "marking the territory."

So having procrastinated a good six weeks, I have run out of excuses. I am going into the bedroom he recently vacated to clean it out so that it can - after fumigation - become my office. This is a frightening task. I tried to rent a federal decontamination suit - you know, like the bad guys wore when they carted off ET - but couldn't seem to find that listing in the yellow pages.

That The Boy would be musical was a given. His father is a fine guitarist. I am a classically trained pianist. No one was surprised when he picked up a guitar and found the melody to "Stairway to Heaven" by the age of ten. What did surprise me, however, was his love of the written word. Oh, not to read it. The Boy has never been much for the escape of reading. No, he likes to write.

Well, again, let's look at the parents. At the age of seventeen, his father wrote one of the most achingly poignant poems I have ever read about the tragic death of his best friend. And I have been known to put a few words together myself. So we should have expected it.

What he didn't get, unfortunately, is my Virgoesque attention to detail. My OCD genes, if you will. No, this Boy has left a mine field of possibly brilliant writing scattered about the detritus of water bottles, broken guitar strings, wadded up boxer shorts (I don't want to know!), and fast food containers.

It would be so easy to go in with a garden rake and corral all of the debris into a garbage bag with one fell swoop. But being a writer myself, I can't do that. So with the love that only a mother possesses, I'll be picking up each little scrap of paper and placing it neatly in a box until I can at least see the carpet again.

More than he deserves, for sure. But not to worry. I'm going to sell his Joe Montana autographed football and his original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle action figures on Ebay. He'll never know it.

(Oh, right. Like he reads my blog!)

Have a great day!
Delia

PS - If there's no entry tomorrow, call 911 and send them to my house.