Tidying Up

Tidying Up ©

By Michael Casey

If you have kids then you know all about tidying up, I can hear the wave of comments being directed to me here behind your computer screen, or on your phone you are reading this on a phone. It all starts when you and your lady give in to Passion, Barry White is booming in the background, then 9 months later the tidying up begins, and does it ever end?

The trick with babies is to learn how to remove the nappy fast and wipe and replace in under 60 seconds, the soiled napped is flung into a plastic bag and removed from your house. It’s a bit like cricket or baseball where the ball has to get to the catcher as soon as possible. In sport this helps you win a game, with nappies or diapers as you call them in USA, it’s to remove the pooh smell from your house before the dog grabs it and buries it at the bottom of the garden. The dog’s nose is 1,000,000 times more sensitive so to the dog a nappy full of pooh is like us being dunked into a cesspit.

A baby has more luggage than a film star, 9 months previously it was a quiet intimate moment, just you and your man and Barry White, alone in a treehouse, he did say he was Tarzan and you were his Jane after all. Now the baby has luggage galore, and why did your friends all give you so many cuddly toys. You sneaked out in the night and left them on the door of the children’s home. So this is what happens when you let him play his Barry White music, you are his baby but he gives you a baby, and a ton of stuff.

You spend years tidying up all the baby stuff, the nappies, the toys, the clothes when will it end? Never, once a parent you are always a parent, my own dad still called me BOY when he was 80, and I was around 40. As your baby grows there are less nappies and the big day arrives, they are potty trained. You are so happy it’s like your team won the FA Cup or Superbowl, or Trump won the election, one of those is absolute fiction, we’ll find out in 7 weeks time. 

You ring your friends and arrange to go out for a drink, it really is a Cosmic event, potty trained, on a par with housetrained for your 5 Alaskan huskies. Our own daughters were 2 when they were finished, and we were so happy, you save a lot of money and your home smells so fresh now.

Your kids grow and they discover Drawing, so you have crayons everywhere, and pieces of paper everywhere. You fridge has turned into a colourful magazine, it’s impossible to find the door and get milk for your coffee, instant coffee with milk but no sugar, yes folks we are really disgusting in England, that’s what I drink, and tea too.

You walk across your living room to the sound of crunching, to the sound on slipping. You slide and slip on wax crayons and paper, your girls think you are Moon Walking, so daddy really did teach Michael Jackson to dance. I used to work in a print room and was allowed to bring home scrap paper, so you can imagine the state of our house.

Tidy Up are words that ring around the house for years, it’s like Autumn always in the house, or The Fall because  of the leaves of paper everywhere, multi-coloured paper that goes swish because of the sweets hidden amongst it. When I try to complain, I’m told I did stand by the now disguised fridge and pray for a wife and family, so blame myself.

The years progress and books are discovered, if you have teachers galore in the family what do expect as presents. I used to buy books from a remainder shop and give them to my nephew and niece, my niece now has a 1^st in English and has just done her Masters. The books I got for her, well 10 years later my brother returned them for his nieces. Books everywhere, a staircase is a perfect bookcase, and in the dark you never know what monster will jump out at you on the stairs. Or in my case slip sliding away, or things that go bump in the night, or me sliding down the stairs like at a Carnival, books as surf boards.

The girls had read everything from the local library, they could practically tell you the position on the shelves where the books lived. Ask your librarian friend if you don’t believe me, just look me up, as they always say.

I tamed all the books in our house by buying 3 bookcases from Argos, ha, see if they can fill those I thought, only my girls read like dredgers, they trawl and read everything. 3 full book cases, a few hundred books. So then I decided to take the nuclear option, I bought an Amazon Kindle. The floorboards in our house rejoiced, high fives everywhere. Saint Jeff Bezos rejoice for you have done well, you will go through the eye of a needle, just give Trump a push through first, God loves everybody after all, apart from the Inland Revenue perhaps.

I should write more but I have to tidy myself up after 3 days of pain, then once shaved I’ll take my walk and stop by Aldi to buy a few things, the fridge is so tidy it’s almost empty, I have to get chocolate for my girls. But before that I have to tidy all the shoes that are littering the house, how can women have so many shoes, and why do I always trip over them? Mind you there is a nice red pair of high heels, I may wear those to Aldi…..