It all started on Friday. I spent the afternoon in town shopping for 5 hours, running here and there, trying to get the best deal on 5 twin mattresses, stock up on badly needed groceries, buying a gallon of paint that was forgotten is a previous trip, etc. Shopping for that long does not put me in a good mood and my feet hurt. When all the groceries had been put away, I went down to help Semisweet and Brownie get started painting their room. I was gone for five minutes max. In that five minutes this happened.

Oh, those lovely screw top lids we have for easy access to our five gallon buckets of food. I did not get mad but rather pulled out the camera remembering the pictures my parents have of me about the same age doing the same thing. Special Dark did, however, spill half of the flour I had bought in town. NOT funny.

Saturday dawned bright and clear. The morning went well without any mishaps. We all cleaned and did our chores. Saturday afternoon the three oldest girls and I spent four hours finishing the paint job in Semisweet’s and Brownie’s room. The other children ran around outside in the sprinklers and watched movies. I faintly remember Special Dark coming in to tell me he had spilled some chocolate milk but, silly me, didn’t think too much about it.

Exhausted after all the painting (the room looks so good!) I came up to the kitchen to wash up and noticed a cup under the dining room table. I went to go pick it up and realized there was not one, but two cups on the floor and two cups worth of chocolate milk spilled everywhere, already drying, sticky, and just starting to smell of sour milk. The girls said none of them had poured SD some milk so we surmised from the mess that he had poured his own milk, stirred in the chocolate and upon drinking it had dropped his cup. He then went to get another cup and repeated the process.

I pulled out the mop, filled it with bleach water and proceeded to mop the floor for the second time that day. As I was mopping I happened to glance up at the wall. There was chocolate milk splattered on two walls all the way to the ceiling! Did I do the easy thing and go get a rag to wipe the walls? Oh no, in my mounting frustration I used the mop to wipe down the walls taking twice as long as I should have. Finally getting the chocolate milk all cleaned up I dunked the mop back into the bucket for one last spot and for the first time in my life, I tipped the mop bucket over spilling most of the dirty, chocolaty water. I threw down the mop picked up the bucket and ran to the kitchen door the whole time saying, “Dang it! Dang it! Dang it!” in a progressively louder and louder voice. I opened the door, let out a mighty yell and swung the bucket high into the air. As I watched it make a beautiful arch I suddenly realized I had parked the Suburban right by the door to clean it out earlier in the day. Thankfully, the bucket missed the car by only inches but the remaining dirty mop water drenched the back of my clean vehicle.

By this time the girls had all come running to see 1) what had caused mom to almost swear and 2) why she yelled so loud. They saw the water spreading across the kitchen floor and promptly leaped into action gathering towels to mop up the water off the floor for the third time that day. One ran to rotate the laundry so the towels could be washed. It took at least ten towels to get it all cleaned up which meant we only had about two clean towels left for everyone to use for their Saturday night baths to prepare for Sunday.

I can certainly laugh about the whole series of events now but yesterday I was so mad nothing was even remotely funny. I had to go rob chocolate candy from the stash I bought for Mr. FR to take to church for the candy container. Downing crunchy Kit-Kats and chewy Snickers made me feel a little better. =) That and the fact that 1) I never actually said a swear word or 2) took out my frustration and anger on the children, only the mop bucket. I did think of my favorite palindrome of all time though – “Dammit I’m mad!”

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