Here's What I Really Want for Valentine's Day
Get Out of Here With Your Candy! Unless it's Reese's.
Valentine’s Day is like anyone other day except the candy is shaped differently. It’s a stupid holiday, but I’m still going to exploit it for all it’s worth.
Here is how we traditionally celebrate:
Bart and I go off and purchase several gifts for the child without consulting each other
The child gets an inordinate amount of gifts, most of them duplicates, because his parents do not consult each other or learn from past mistakes
The mother eats several heart-shaped chocolates when the child isn’t looking
No gifts are exchanged between the husband and the wife because the husband is very lucky he married someone who thinks Valentine’s Day is stupid and doesn’t want another person to buy gifts for
But this year?
Things will be different.
Luck has turned.
This year I have a whole list of things I want for Valentine’s Day.
The heart wants what heart wants.
I Want My Husband to Wake up Early on a Sunday to Register the Child for Camp
I told you the summer camp registration process is no joke. It’s stroke-inducing. Ulcer-giving. I stress about it all year. So this year, I’m passing on the high blood pressure baton and letting Bart handle basketball camp registration. It’s not just about getting up at 7:45 on a Sunday and hitting the refresh button like you’re a middle-aged celebrity at a medispa. It’s not just the fear of RUINING YOUR SON’S LIFE AND SUMMER because you failed to get him a seat at THE basketball camp in the city. It’s not just jolting awake several times a night— every night— in the weeks leading up to registration day because you are sure you overslept.
How could I not want to share that with the man I love?
I Want People to Throw Things Away When They are Empty
“Mom, we’re out of cereal bars!”
“No we’re not! There’s a box in the pantry!”
“THOSE ARE EMPTY!”
Ohhhhh my bad! I forgot the pantry is where we keep our garbage. How am I supposed to know we are out of things when it looks like our pantry is full of things!? Oh right— because a little tween lazy boy yells at me!
And speaking of garbage/recycling…
🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬
I Want People to Stop Putting Food in the Recycling Bin!
Here in Seattle we have garbage, recycling, and compost. We’re a lot. The city recycling no longer takes plastic bags or multilayer film so we opted to pay another company to pick-up that. It’s really not that complicated, but 2 out of 3 people in this household are still completely baffled about what goes where.
Actual footage of my son holding an empty can of La Croix:
I get it— if you’re at Whole Foods and faced with three bins labeled:
RECYCLING
COMPOST
LANDFILL1
And you have a weird looking spork that might be plastic or possibly made out of sugarcane and baby lamb eyelashes, you might become absolutely paralyzed by which bin to place that spork. I get it. It’s fucking trauma-inducing. I do not want to make the wrong choice! But I like to think our house is less scary. In this house there is one garbage can, one basket next to the fridge for recycling, and a bag in the closet for plastic bags.
This is how it has been for TWELVE YEARS.
I think we can all agree that food doesn’t go in recycling. Never has. And this is clearly food (even though it looks a little bit like poop. Sorry!)
That is a homemade brownie. A brownie I was commanded to make for the football watching party someone wanted to host for nine of his tween friends. I’d like to know which of those little bitches didn’t like my goddamn brownie!
To be fair, this may or may not have been my son’s act of defiance this time, but you have no idea how many non-recyclable items I pick out of this recycling bin—chicken nuggets, food-soiled tin foil, a sock! And how any recyclable items I find in the trash. It’s like living with my parents!
🗑️♻️🗑️♻️🗑️♻️🗑️♻️🗑️♻️🗑️♻️🗑️♻️🗑️♻️🗑️♻️🗑️♻️🗑️
I Want Someone to Actually Look for the Ketchup Before Asking Me Where the Ketchup Is
I once had a boss who would say, “Look with your eyes, not with your mouth!”
The man was a prophet.
This photo has NOT been manipulated. The ketchup has been stored in this spot for eight years2 because we always buy the big bottle and it’s the only place it fits.
🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️🤦🏻♀️
I Want Someone to Pick Up This Goddamn Paper Towel
It’s literally been on the bathroom floor for six days. SIX DAYS! My family uses this bathroom SEVERAL times a day! I know they see this. I know their bodies have moved and manipulated this paper towel because I sometimes find it in a different spot! PLEASE SOMEONE PICK UP THE PAPER TOWEL!
😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩😩
I Want My Son to Ask My Husband Instead of Me
Let’s say I went grocery shopping or took a walk or went out to dinner with my friends and left my tween son and very capable adult husband at home. 99% of the time when I return, the child will pounce on me because he is so very hungry or can’t find his basketball jersey or needs to find the charger for his Switch or any other timely emergency.
“Where’s Dad?” I ask
“Downstairs,” he responds.
“And he couldn’t help you?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t ask him.”
Are you kidding me???
I promise you, the father is capable. He can boil water in a kettle and open a jar of marinara sauce as well as anyone. (He’s about 50/50 on finding the missing jersey.) There is most likely an adult in this house if I am not home and that adult is probably THE FATHER.
This is not a surprise. Bart doesn’t sneak in through a window or teleport from Planet Bleezelbort. These two individuals know each other. They seem to like each other quite a bit. They even look alike!
My Husband:
My Child:
“But why did you wait for me to come home? Why couldn’t you ask Dad?” I ask this very loudly because it is also my signal to Bart to get over here and address this situation! We have a hungry child with a dead game console, DAD!
I hear Bart trudge up the stairs from his man cave where he was toiling and tinkering and probably Googling things like, “Whatever do I do should a child tell me they are hungry?”
“Buddy, I’m right here. You could have asked me for help.”
The child shrugs and promises to remember he has two parents. And then asks me to make him spaghetti.
Bart shrugs and throws a banana peel in the recycling bin.
The child still can’t find his jersey.
I lock myself in the bathroom with a bag of Reese’s peanut butter hearts.
See? Just like any other day.
XO,
Shelly
❤️🔥❤️🩹💝❤️🔥❤️🩹💝❤️🔥❤️🩹💝❤️🔥❤️🩹💝❤️🔥❤️🩹💝❤️🔥❤️🩹💝❤️🔥❤️🩹💝❤️🔥❤️🩹💝❤️🔥❤️🩹💝
Even though V-day might be stupid I will still take this opportunity to express my love for you— the readers of Middle-Aged Lady Mom. Whether you’re here because I signed you up against your will (hi, Dad!) or joined of your own free volition or are reading MALM for the first time and wondering why, I am externally grateful to each of you. XO!
Landfill. Not “trash” or “garbage.” Whole Foods wants your selfish, planet-killing ass to know exactly where that spork is going.
My son fell in love with ketchup when he was 3. He is now 11. I can do math.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA 🥴🫠😫 oooooh to live in a world where these wishes could come true!
That empty container thing is high on my wish list too. Will pencil that in for Mother’s Day gifts.