Once More Into the Breach

Author's note: I wrote this ten years ago, but stumbled across it again the other day. It still made me chuckle, and shudder a bit, as I remembered some of the trials of raising children. -- MKZ

Into The Breach

I tried to warn her, but she wouldn't listen. I told her it was too dangerous. No one could go into that place and come away unscathed. There were things too terrible to comprehend in there; this sort of thing was better left to trained professionals hardened to the type of atrocities those four walls contained. I tried, but my words fell on deaf ears. I insisted she tie a stout rope around her waist in case things got too rough and we needed to haul her out, and, reluctantly, she agreed. Giving my hand a quick squeeze, and my lips a brief, soft brush with hers, she turned away. Her face became a mask of determination as she edged closer to the threshold where mortals normally dare not go. A few steps more, and she was gone. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was to be our final parting. My wife had bravely gone into our daughter's bedroom, vowing not to emerge until it had been thoroughly cleaned. Our daughter, you see, is a pig.

No parent likes to admit a child of theirs is a slob, but our daughter is a bona fide pig. We have even toyed with giving her the nickname TOD, which stands for Trail Of Destruction. If we call her TOD, though, she simply rolls her eleven-year-old eyes back in her head and stomps off, something she is quite good at. Some may say she is best at whining or biting sarcasm, but her forte is definitely stomping. She's no slouch at door slamming and her hands have jammed down on her hips so many times she has permanent divots, but for pure perfection, that girl is a stomper. And, unfortunately, she is a pig.

It’s as though she thinks the whole house is her personal trashcan. Things are dropped wherever she happens to be. Her grandmother, after a weeklong visit with us told me, "She just doesn't look behind her." I had turned to my mother-in-law for advice, or, at the very least, support and empathy. I knew she had raised at least one daughter (NOT my wife, to be clear) who had kept a, shall we say, “less than perfectly-ordered” bedroom.

"Less than perfect?" MIL hooted. "We didn't see her carpet for two years! One time we got out the garden rake to drag things out from under her bed. We found Jimmy Hoffa!"

Okay, I made up the part about Jimmy Hoffa, but she did concede that one of their two youngest girls had been a bit slovenly in the room upkeep department. In her defense, though, she turned out all right, once she was on her own and Mom was not there to pick up after her. In truth, she came up against roommates who were her slobbish equals. One day, the light came on for her, and she suddenly began to keep things picked up better. Not perfect, but better.

There was a plaque in my parents’ house when I was growing up which read: “Our House Is Clean Enough To Be Healthy, And Dirty Enough To Be Happy.” I point to this as way of explaining that I do not go around with a white glove and petri dishes to check for pathogens. I just knew my daughter's room couldn't pass an inspection by even a blind health department official. If dirty was synonymous with happy, she must have been the happiest person in the world. Her happiness was not shared by my wife, though, who had reached her breaking point. So when our daughter was away for the weekend on a church youth retreat, my wife grabbed an extra large garbage bag, gritted her teeth and said, "I'm going in." My son and I looked at each other and were sore afraid.

Five hours later, my wife emerged from Becca's room, and announced, "It is finished."

During her ordeal, we kept track of everything removed, discarded, uncovered or retrieved from the abyss. Here is the accounting: My wife filled two extra-large garbage bags, found sixteen pencils, eighteen cassette tapes, nineteen pens, thirty-five socks, two dirty bowls and several spoons. She found a book the library had called about six months earlier, and unearthed over a hundred Q-tips that had been pressed into service as paintbrushes. Two giant bottles of glue were discovered, two unused rolls of masking tape, a used, empty tape dispenser, and a partially used roll of electrical tape. She located my fishing light, the one that clips to the bill of a cap, and a spool of fishing line. Also in the tally were untold numbers of Halloween candy wrappers, five pair of scissors, two unopened bags of fruit snacks and a can of soda in her nightstand, a cookie on her dresser, several wrappers from individual cheese slices and a couple snack cracker wrappers.

My wife told me she thought she heard a strange, mechanical whimper as she was bringing the vacuum cleaner to finish cleaning the room, and said that whenever she would stop vacuuming for a moment the vacuum cleaner would try to make a break for the door. Who could blame it?

When our daughter came home the next afternoon, she screeched at the sight of all that cleanliness and order where disarray and filth had once been her happy bunkmates. To her credit, though, she did not accuse us of violating her privacy. Personally, I think she was glad she had not been forced to do it herself, because she knew it would have taken her days to get it this clean. She did, however, inform us that she was never leaving again. Ever.

Through it all, my son kept a silent vigil outside his sister's room. He watched wordlessly, eyes open wide, as his mother waded through the piles of trash threatening to escape the confines of the bedroom and spill out and take over the entire house. He watched quietly, holding onto that rope tied to his mother's waist, and prayed. Prayed that she wouldn't finish and move on to HIS room.

© 1996-2006 Mike Zimmerli All Rights Reserved