This is an embarrassing post. Please do not judge me. Until you've lived with Kindsay, you can't.
As you all know, my oldest has moved out and left a vacant bedroom, one which my youngest, Ty, claimed the day after she left. He moved his Littlest Pet Shop onto her bookshelf before I could clean it off, and has adamantly corrected me every time I've referred to it as "Bek's room." The boys have been sleeping in there because it's got a full bed versus the two chickens sleeping in a twin together (they won't split up though there are 3 twins in their room.) The other night I heard my husband, Greg, telling the boys they had to sleep on the twin so Kindsay could have the full bed. He came into our room and I asked, What's going on? Why does Kindsay need Bek's room?" (Ty yells from obscurity "it's MY room!") He tells me Kindsay saw a bug flying around and it freaked her out. I said, She's probably getting bugs because of the horrid mess she lets pile up. We'd been on her forever to clean her room. When there is incentive (cash,....yeah, just cash) she'll do an awesome job, even bed made and closet cleaned out. But no incentives we've tried worked...I don't want to pay her to clean her own mess. Then she'd just continue to make it filthy to exploit money out of me. Last weekend Greg said she could go see Justin Beiber's movie if she cleans it...guess who went anyway--and with a friend! Room still gross, if not worse adding the movie trash. If I'd taken a picture of it, you'd judge me without consciousness...but now you can't imagine on your own how very bad it was. She'd be on the next season of Hoarders had I sent in a picture. Actually, it's not as bad, it'd be more like "Hoarders-in-Training" or something.
ANYWAY...
Needless to say, I'd hit my limit. When I hit my limit I just break down and clean her room. But it lasts for two days and then back to an atrocity so I get disheartened to even bother. But every time I walked by her room I could smell it. The door was shut, and I could smell it. Baaaad sign. She was terrified of the bugs so she wouldn't go in, which is funny because she'll pick up a frog, but a small beetle will freak her out. I thought--why am I going to let her trash her room then go into a new room and trash it too? nuh-uh...not on my watch. So on Valentine's Day...what is it with Kindsay always blowing my V-Day's?...I grabbed a trash bag and said "I'm going in!" Greg tried to stop me, No honey, it's your day, go relax. I can't, I tell him, I've had it and can't take it any more. I'm going to just bag everything, trash or not, and kick her out of the room! I open the door.
Her room gets super dark because it's in the shadow of the front porch facing away from the sun. It was already early evening, or late afternoon, and it was light enough that I could see where I was going, but too dark to be able to do a good cleaning. I approached the lamp with hesitation as I imagined I was entering a scene on "The Birds" except they were gnats. They had taken over and I was an intruder in their new territory. I clicked the light on...no gnats. I looked around, scanning the walls, ceiling, closet area, no gnats. Hm...she must've seen one and freaked out. She is great at exaggerating...loving the drama as she does. I pulled her mattresses away from the wall, which were bare and skewed from each other. Along the edge of the bed lay every wrapper from now way back to Halloween. I made my hand into a scoop and just, well...scooped. Scoop after scoop of trash. Candy wrappers, food, old fruit peels, you name it....I pulled the mattress the other way and continued until half the kitchen sized trash bag was full. Greg came in with another trash bag and I turned to him..."Look at this. This is crazy!" Kindsay was in the shower so we couldn't confront her yet, but we kept on scooping. I rounded the bed and headed toward her desk. Now, this desk serves as a hoarder's domain. It keeps all the brochures, pamphlets, old magazines, newspapers, etc. that she picks up for free in front of the store. It has bows and ribbons strewn about, paper tossed, she even had her picture of Jesus with a picture of Bek's ex-boyfriend in a Speedo stuck in the back on her desk. I started scraping along the desk, junk falling into the bag below. I crouch down to find another trash bag. This one was Kindsay's. It was half full too. I pulled it out and got Greg's attention. "She has a bag of trash in here. Look at..." I didn't get my sentence done and the exodus began. A swarm of gnats began charging at me to defend their lands. A dozen escaped before I shut the bag and knotted it. Being white plastic, we could see inside where hundreds of gnats swarmed like a bad horror movie. We just stood there, gaping mouths, widened eyes, motionless except for my quick reflex to shutting the bag. Gnats flew around my head. I had read online, trying to find out why Kindsay had what I thought was "a gnat" in her room. The websites said one gnat can lay hundreds of eggs...drawn to piles of trash...if you see one you must kill it immediately. So here I had a small swarm buzzing around my head like Pigpen on Charlie Brown. I grabbed a fly swatter out of the kitchen while Greg grabbed the bag and headed outside to the trash bin. I swatted away, like a mad woman. The swatter had holes bigger than the gnats so I knew I'd have to hit them just right to kill them, so I swatted...swatted the walls, the table, the lamp, the desk, the air...I was swatting so furiously I was probably airborne for a while. Greg returned and saw my madnes as I swatted the air, he could see nothing, but I didn't care. I wasn't going to let one get away so it could go lay eggs!
Here comes Kindsay, strolling down the hall out of the shower. She stands in the doorway holding the towel up to her, the back opened wide for any unsuspecting hall walkers to see, and she looks at me, then Greg...then me...what's going on? is on her face. Greg started on her. "Kindsay--WE are cleaning YOUR room. You were supposed to do it! I love you Kindsay, but you are a filthy person!" "I'm a filthy person?" She echoes. "Yes, we found...." he couldn't finish his sentence before she started in, "Beevee, beevee, beevee, beevee, beevee, beevee" (it's the word she loves repeating over and over until we beg her to stop.) She stops for a moment, "Do you like that word?" and back again "beevee beevee beevee" as if there was nothing going on. We are standing there with bags of trash, I'm swatting away, and Greg is fuming. Beevee beevee beevee.
Oh well, at least for now I don't have to smell her room. Although, every now and then I find a gnat floating in my face, taunting me like a scout sent out to find a good nesting place. You can hear my claps all through the house as I kill myself just to smear it's bug body into my hands. And the question remains, "Y me?"
