Home, Sweet Disaster Area

There's a mostly-full coffee mug in the upstairs bathroom. At first glance, one would assume it mine. It is, after all, the Eeyore mug that Bear gave me for my birthday last year.

Alas, no. Husband left it there this morning after he came in (while I was showering) for a good-bye kiss, a quick ogle and a last sip of coffee before he headed downstairs (where the kitchen is) and off to work (leaving the bathroom door wide open so the draft could pounce in to tackle the luscious steam heat that I had managed to capture).

At this point, it's slightly more than 14 hours old. I'm giving 10 to 1 odds that it'll still be there when we get back from Holiday World on Wednesday.

Husband and I have been working a lot. Mostly opposite hours. He's off on Monday and some arbitrary other day of the week. I'm off on weekends. The heathens are in daycare on Monday and all the other arbitrary work days of the week. They're off on weekends.

I'm a mostly-single mom (according to me, I certainly am not intending to put myself in the single mom's place, they're goddesses). I do all of the shopping (with heathens in tow), cooking, cleaning, laundering, auto-maintaining (on my car), library-running, movie-returning (without the benefit of movie-watching), dry-cleaning-drop-offing, grounding, yelling, no-saying and anti-depressant taking. Plus, I work a 40-50 hour week. And, I have to stay on top of the whole birth control thing just to keep the heathens from becoming any more plural.

In addition to all of the othering-ing I've been doing for the past week, I've also been sick-kid-coddling (surprise! it's not even a holiday) and sick-me-coddling. The living room is a pit, the kitchen is actually clean except for the dishwasher that simply needs to be unloaded and the laundry is done (as much as laundry can really be "done").

So, I'm leaving the cup.

I am smart enough and experienced enough to realize that The Grand Experiment never works. All of the "sigh"'s, and "Honey, that cup is nasty"'s and "Would you take that cup to the kitchen before it takes over the fucking bathroom?"'s in the world aren't going to make a dent in good ole Husband's "Oh, did I leave that cup there?" mentality. He was done with it, therefore it ceased to exist. All it's really going to do is piss me off.

The heathens might notice it though. I'm sure they'll say something. Probably to me, sure, but maybe to him after I repeat "Your daddy left it there." about 65,000,000 times.

Doomed to failure, I take a stand. I'm not sure if that makes me brave or stupid. It does make me feel a little superior. And hopeful. That may just be the anti-depressants talking though.

The Antimicrobial Properties of the Paper Towel

Has anyone looked into this? It has to be amazing. 450 telephone nurses couldn't be wrong. Or could they?

First of all, these women are the most disgusting bathroom users on the planet. They rarely flush, they pee all over the seat, the counter tops are generally covered with water. They talk on the freaking phone in the stalls, for Christ's sake. Who calls their insurance agent while they're taking a whizz? I certainly don't.

They do the normal "I'm afraid of the Bad Germies" door thing with the paper towel. Too bad they can't actually get the paper towel into the trash can when they're done. Too bad, too, that they can't pick up after themselves after they throw their paper towels on the floor.

So. Paper towels have an amazing capacity to keep Bad Germies off your hands when you open the bathroom door from the inside (supposedly, we've all washed our hands, right? Those are some strong Bad Germies.) The also have an amazing capacity to keep Bad Germies off your hands while turning off the faucet after you've washed your hands. (Remember! The last time you touched the faucet, your hands were still dirty.)

The other day, I saw one of these women bring her McDonald's sack into the bathroom (even I draw the line there and I touch the door handle with my bare skin!). She pulls 4 or 5 of these wondrous little paper towels from the holder, slaps them down on the counter top (ew!) and sets her lunch bag on it.

Tada! McDonald's lunch, free from the Bad Germies! And now, she doesn't even have to carry the Bad Germies back to her desk with her! She can leave them in the bathroom where they belong!

Amazing.

I'd like to make a call, right now. Anyone who has the time, energy and training to study the Bad Germie repelling powers of the average public bathroom paper towel, please do some research on this. I'd love to post it on the bathroom mirror and see the reaction.