Everyone's A Critic

Sometimes I wish I could get fired from my job. Do I have dreams? Do I have aspirations? Heck no. But I have a toilet bowl that is springtime fresh, according to the toilet bowl cleaner label. I don't do much outside of cook and clean for ungrateful persons-who-shall-not-be-named (*cough* Sister! Princess! *cough*). If someone cooked and cleaned for me I would be so grateful, I would not even complain if they put my kitchen towels in the bathroom. But, alas, no such luck for me.

I don't fold my shirts, I hang them up.
God forbid I forget that one! We couldn't possible fold our clothes and put them in our dressers! That is just silly talk. And if our dressers puke out their contents all over the floor, that is acceptable -- it makes finding something that much easier. Even though I labeled their drawers for them, to make it easier to organize and keep track of what goes where, they still like to start at the top and stuff in as much as possible regardless of what it is. The top drawer will be bursting with pajamas, shirts, shorts and unmentionables, but the bottom drawers will be empty.

I get hungry at night!
I never ever under any circumstances eat in bed. Never. So I do not understand the wrappers and dishes strewn about in their bedrooms. Have a snack before you go to bed, just don't take the box of doughnuts to bed with you. And if you have to take snack cakes and milk to bed, BRING THE DISHES BACK OUT! I will gladly do the dishes (because nobody else will) but I will not take them out of your room. And if I get bugs in my house, doom on you! I will take it out on your big round behinds!

I don't put my hairbrush/makeup bag/hairdryer/straightening iron/hair products there.
I do. When you don't put anything away you have to deal with where the person who does put things away puts them. And sometimes that means you will find your makeup bag in with the bathroom cleaners because I like to pitch crap under the sink when it takes over my sink. They tell me this like they think I care. Like I am worried about where I put their stuff when they leave it all over the place. Silly kids, I don't care if you don't want your stuff by the toilet bowl brush. If you don't like how I put it away, do it yourself, or do your hair with toilet germs, it doesn't bother me.

Did you wash my ______?
I gladly do the laundry. I will not pick it up off your floor so if you want it done drag it the 5 feet into the bathroom laundry basket. If it did not get washed you have several options: put it in the laundry basket and wait for it to come back around; wash it yourself, you can even borrow my antique washboard and take it to the river; wear it dirty; wear something else; or go naked. I am okay with all those options.

You made that for dinner?!
You know what my favorite meal is? Whatever someone else makes. I will never complain if someone cooks for me. I will praise it to the skies and back and eat with a grin on my face even if it tastes like something fresh from the manure pile. The other day I made a meat loaf and my sister said her's was better. Then the next day I made sloppy joes and again she thought she could have done better. She has IBS so she gets the runs from anything slightly spicy, so I made those meals more bland to help her. After the criticisms, I made stuff the way I like it -- with a little bite to it -- and enjoyed watching her race to the toilet. When I suggested she make the meals, she decided that she had never tasted anything so delicious in her whole life and that nobody can cook like me. Why I don't have my own cooking show is a mystery to her! All others pale in comparison to me.

Can you move your stuff over? I want to color here. Why are you painting seaweed?
I'm not painting seaweed, they are going to be flowers, thank you very little. I paint with oils and I like to layer the paint. Where you want to color is my art desk. You may use it, but do not touch my stuff because oils take a long time to dry and I don't want them smeared. If you push all my stuff around and scatter my painting utensils, I will get crabby. If the dogs chew up my brushes and paints (which the little one did -- he ate one of my white oil paints) I am going to take it out on your piggy bank. I don't care if I have to haul the change to the bank to cash it in. Please don't eat at my art desk, I do not want crumbs all over my stuff and in my paints. But as you have already dug into my stuff, please try to be respectful of my things.

I love my roommates more than anything but sometimes I get tired of being the maid to such slovenly pigs. It is a full time job keeping up after 3 people who do not do anything. If they eat something they just drop the wrapper, after a shower they wad the towels and leave them anywhere, they bunch up my kitchen towels after drying their hands so that I am forever going behind them and unbunching them so they don't get mildewy. I go around saying, like a mantra, "Don't leave that there! Pick that up! Put that away! That doesn't go there, put it where it belongs!" and so on. I made a map of where the trash can is outside for them so they wouldn't get lost, and I gave them a list of things that they can do and I won't get mad about. Like take out the trash when it is threatening to topple over. It is not a Janga game. We are not trying to see who can pile it the highest without making it fall over. It is okay for them to take it out when it is full, they don't have to wait for me to do it. Yesterday my little sister's room was bothering me so much I snapped. Her laundry was filling the living room because she has no organization in her room and thus no room for all her crap. I went into her room where she and her boyfriend/fiance were sleeping, yanked the covers off them (all the while praying they didn't sleep nude) and made them get up and clean that room. That is the benefit to being the older sister, you get to be bossy and get away with it. The good news is they got it clean enough to get the crap out of my living room and I was able to vacuum a small part of her room. Baby steps, but progress all the same.