The cleaning lady found a sippy cup under the couch. It's been there for a week. I know it once contained milk - before the girls left for Florida - but now I am truly terrified to open it and see what horror it contains. This is one of the myriad of things no one tells you about motherhood, that an intimate acquaintance with all things damp, moldy, mildewy and rotten is a job requirement.
My education began with bath towels six years ago. While giving #1 her nightly bath I thought to myself, "Of course I must use a fresh towel each night since my daughter, who has spent the better part of her waking hours in her pristine bouncy seat, is obviously covered with filth at the end of each day and last night's towel is definitely a health hazard. Multiply this by seven, add in the fact that I had received about eight hundred hooded bath towels at my baby shower and therefore did not need to do wash every day and the result is me pulling seven towels out of the hamper at the end of the week now smelling like mildew.
Raising small children is to immerse oneself in a world of filth and rot. This milk cup is just the tip of the iceberg. Water cups left in a the van for too long in the summer months develop a slimy coating on their interior and an errant half-eaten jar of baby food that has rolled out of the food bag and remains out of sight under the fold away seat can make the car smell like there's a corpse hidden in the wheel wells. Don't even get me started on a pair of underwear with the tiniest amount of urine on them that are not laundered immediately. They begin to smell like the bathrooms at Port Authority in a surprisingly short amount of time. And a crib sheet that a mouth-breathing-stomach-sleeping baby has been drooling on for a few days? It burns the hairs of my nostrils just thinking about it. And this is in addition to the pee, crap and vomit we deal with on a regular basis.
If I had a replacement I would just throw the cup away unopened and be done with it. But since I don't, I will, at some point tonight, have to steel myself and release whatever Cracken is living inside it then clean it. I'm sure it won't be too bad. Look kids! Homemade yogurt!
*And if you do not recognize the title of this post as a line from the 1981 classic with the absolute worst special effects and a really, really, homosexual looking Harry Hamlin, Clash of the Titans, you must drop whatever you are doing and drive to a video store immediately.
3 comments:
Firstly, I feel your pain. When the screw top to the cup is a struggle to open, then the gaseous release is enough to have Homeland Security knocking on your door to take you to Gitmo, there's all kinds of issues just to get started.
And secondly, and more sadly, it's Kraken. I only know this because of my current (slightly more obsessive than I care to admit) writing project - and A-level in Classical History. You must be thinking of our friend Phil. Phil McCracken.
i immediately recognized the quote and have been on youtube for the last 20 minutes watching clips from that fine fine movie. Clash of the Titans Holler!
i feel your pain, mostly because my dogs feast on their own shit nightly. Their long, delicate ears collect the stench requiring daily baths.
i think you are luckier than me though because my dogs will be arrested in this shit eating stage until the day they die. At least your kids will get cleaner.
Who knew there could be such funk and foul smells associated with little ones (diapers aside)? I'm officially grossed out.
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