A tragedy in blue

I am sitting here thinking.

Trying to get lost in my thoughts.

Four little girls come thundering down the stairs to do a little dance of treat-begging before me, “Please?  Can we have an Otter Pop?  Please?”

“What?  Sure.  Take them outside.  And open them outside!  No mess in the house!”

“What if we want juice?”

“Yeah, sure . . . juice is fine.  Just take it outside.”

We have had guests and sleepovers and neighborhood children over for every single minute of the last 48 hours.  My head is tired of listening to all of this girl energy.  I am tired of responding to their many needs.  Otter Pops?  Juice?  A small price to pay for a few minutes of quiet.

They step into the pantry and fridge area, and then?  All hell breaks loose.  At first, I ignore them.  How much trouble can they get into choosing frozen Otter Pops?

But the hell continues to break loose, and so I focus.

This is what I hear . . .

Oh my gosh oh my gosh you’re making a mess no I’m not it’s fine we’ll clean it up it will be alright but it’s a big mess someone go in there and tell my mom that everything is ok no I’m not going in there you go in there well I certainly can’t go in there I am covered in blue Otter Pop juice and she is not going to be happy to see me at all you go in there and explain that we have everything under control because I am pretty sure she heard us screaming grab the dog grab the dog grab the dog we have to clean him he can’t be blue she is going to notice that.

Fuck.

So I walk the few steps from here to there, and this is what I see . . .

A small blue dog.

Four girls, all dripping blue.

Maj is holding in her arms a huge bundle of unfrozen Otter Pops, from which blue and green liquid is leaking.

They could be standing on the tiled floor, but they are not.  They are in the pantry area, which is carpeted.  Where we keep the as-yet-unfrozen Otter Pops.

Duh.

I take a deep breath and try to speak calmly.

“Ok, first.  Let’s everybody take a few steps this way onto the tiled floor.”

They step silently.

“Maj, throw all of those Otter Pops in the sink here.”

She does.

I pick up the ecstatic blue sticky dog and throw him in the adjacent bathroom’s shower.  I wash and wipe down four little girls.  I wipe the worst of the mess off of the stupid smaller dog.

And then the five of us turn and stare at the carpet.

Sigh.

I put my hands on my hips, “Could someone please explain why on earth you guys are ripping apart the Otter Pops that aren’t frozen?  What would possess you to do that?”

Kallan answers for the group, “We asked if we could have juice.  You said we could.”

“That’s what you meant?  I thought you wanted a glass of orange juice.”

Kallan slides her eyes at her friends and her sister, “Why would we want orange juice?  Orange juice is not a treat.  We wanted melted Otter Pop juice.”

I am an idiot, apparently.

“Why did you rip them apart over the carpet?”

Kallan again, all reasonable, “We did not actually expect that there would be a tragedy.”

All four girls nod in sad agreement.

“Alright, ladies . . . here’s the deal.  There is a huge amount of clean-up to do.  There is Otter Pop juice all over the pantry shelves, the carpet, and the dog.  It appears we had a misunderstanding.  I know this was an accident.  I should have been paying more attention.  So here’s what I’m going to do.  I am willing to clean all of this up for you if you will just go play outside until I am done.  Deal?”

Kallan again, “Can we have an Otter Pop?”

All four girls look at me hopefully.

One of these days?  I am going to strangle Kallan, “No, you may not.  Not until I am done cleaning.  Just go outside and play.”

Kallan protests, “But you said we could . . . ”

I interrupt, “Kallan, look at my face.  Is this the face of a woman who is going to give you an Otter Pop at this moment?”

All four girls shake their heads sadly.  No, it is not that kind of face.

They leave, and I stare at the liquid sticky mess.  Some green, but mostly blue.  The blue ones are the best . . . raspberry.

I start dabbing at the carpet with a damp cloth.  The carpet is very blue.

Mark walks through, “Jesus!  It looks like someone killed a Smurf in here!  What the hell happened?”

I explain and conclude with, “Our girls?  They have not turned out to be as smart as I had hoped.”

He bends to help me soak up the sugary blue, “Is there some sort of common sense class we could enroll them in?  That’s all they need . . . a little common sense.”

He looks at me, “Why aren’t they cleaning this up themselves?”

“Because I needed them to go away.  This,” I spread my arms, “was partly my fault, and I was all pissed off, and I just needed them to go away.”

He leaves and comes back with the carpet-cleaning spray.

He kneels beside me, “This is what they should have told us about in those parenting classes so long ago.  They should have told us about shit like this.”

And we work together.

Parents.