You're doing it wrong......

Today, for your reading pleasure, I will provide a tutorial for all the things you are obviously doing wrong around the house. Through careful research and observation, I have learned what is, clearly, the "right" way to do things, because I am outnumbered in my home by people who do them this way.

First of all: cereal. If you enjoy cereal from time to time, you have probably observed the obviously faulty packaging. The cereal itself is packaged in a waxy bag that, once opened, can no longer be closed. In fact, just the opening part is challenging, and one must rip and/or cut it with scissors in such a way that most of the cereal will now fall INTO the box instead of OUT of it. Very disconcerting. Then, the box itself has a design flaw in that one is expected to push a tiny tab of cardboard into an equally tiny slit in the cardboard on the other side of the box. IMPOSSIBLE, I say! My genius children have discovered a way to get around these confounding problems. They simply leave the box open and the bag gaping. That way, the next time they want cereal, they don't have to take ANY extra steps to get to the flakes inside the box. What if they become stale, you say? No problem! They simply don't eat the cereal, leave the box standing wide open for months, until which time mom pours the stale wares into a giant ziploc bag labeled "duck food". Yay for feeding the ducks! I think next time I go to the store, I'll buy the most expensive box of cereal and just pour it directly into the retention pond at the end of my block. Same difference.

Now, let's move on to cheese sticks. Those darn things are SO convenient. They are low-fat, nutritious, and conveniently packaged in an easy-to-open plastic wrapper. Now, I prefer to open the package slowly as I bite each piece of cheese and when I'm done, place the plastic wrapper in a proper trash receptacle. My children, however, prefer to rip the whole thing off at once, devour the cheese and throw the wrapper on the floor. Yes, the floor. This astounds you? Clearly this is the proper place to put a cheese stick wrapper, because there's been one on my floor since yesterday morning. In the hallway. Nestled in a bundle of dog hair. A mere few feet away, my kitchen is spotless. But, alas, there is dog hair and a cheese stick wrapper in the hallway. Who put it there? That is the great mystery. Why? Because it's the right way to do it! How long will it lay there? Until I, and only I, stoop over and pick it up. Because no one else in this house can see it.

Now, here's how you do laundry. You wear your clothes until you have nothing left. Then, you borrow underwear from your stepdad's drawer because you are too lazy to wash your own, and you don't want to go commando. You stop wearing socks, insisting that the "no-sock" look is now in fashion, and you pull a sweatshirt out of the dirty laundry numerous times until that fateful day when you get an actual obvious stain on it that you can't hide and now you're really f*cked. What to do? You hoodwink your mom into believing you no longer have any clothes that fit. You mention this when you're at Target, exactly when you're passing the display of t-shirts that are on sale for $8 each, and after getting mom to buy a couple of those for you, you mention that your jeans don't fit and here are a pair on sale, and by the way, you could use some new underwear. Mom, under the influence of the hazy glare of Target lights and screamin' deals, buys you what accounts for a new wardrobe and you get a few more weeks' worth of clothing without ever having to touch laundry soap. Eventually, though, you WILL have to wash something. So, the best way to do it is to cram everything into the washer (lights and darks be damned), and make it really, really full so that when the spin cycle starts, everyone in the house resorts to "duck, cover and hold" because the whole-house shaking MUST be an earthquake. But no, whew, it's just the washer going off-balance again! After the clothes are dried, leave them in the dryer indefinitely and use that as your personal closet until someone finally puts your clothes in a basket because THEY need the washer and dryer. After that, use the basket as your closet, and if, by some rude chance, someone actually dumps your clothes onto a clean blanket on your floor because they need the basket, do NOT, by any means, finally hang and/or fold anything! Simply walk all over the clothes for another two weeks until you decide they are "gross" and need to be washed again. Repeat washer-stuffing process or trick mom into a shopping trip to Target. Repeat. Repeat.

Here's another fun cleaning tip for the bathroom. Whilst brushing your teeth, it's always fun to try and dribble a spitty blob of toothpaste directly into the sink, or, even better, ON the spigot. Leave it there indefinitely, adding blobs from time to time and see what a fun sculpture you can build with just toothpaste and your own spit! What? You were rinsing it down all this time? Fool!

And lastly, here's a fun decorating tip for the kitchen and surrounding area. Every time you open a package or unwrap a piece of candy or gum, leave the wrapper (or those colorful tear-off strips) lying around all over - the counters, table, floor, coffee table. These will add a pop of color to your otherwise boring decor, and provide a nice little treat for the dog from time to time, which can result in the most amazing and colorful dog poopies you've ever seen! In addition, they sometimes blow off the counter, mix with dog hair and make colorful "dust bunnies" (or "dust puppies"?) which scurry up and down your hallway in a most amusing fashion. And if they're lucky, they will stake a claim and take up permanent residence, like the cheese stick wrapper currently in my hallway. Come by and say "hey" to our newest resident!

I hope this has been helpful. I hope you have not been straining yourself by doing foolish things like closing cereal boxes, picking up trash off the floor, wiping up toothpaste accidents, and doing laundry regularly. That would just.....make sense. And who wants to be sensible in this crazy world?