Yakety Yak

"Do you trust me?"

Nothing.

Just a stressed look on the Elder Boy's face followed by jerky nervous foot to foot action as he hopped from pile to pile of detritus strewn all over his bedroom floor.

"Boy," I said much more forcibly than I had intended. "Do you trust me?"

Nothing.

"What are these?" I asked holding up a ziplock bag full of cardboard pieces. "Did you cut these out of a toy box?"

Nothing.

"Why would you keep these?" I asked shaking my head in amazement.

"I need them."

"You need them?"

"Yeah."

"They were buried under all this gimme toy crap from Adventure Landing. You probably didn't even know they were in this drawer. What do you need them for?"

"Need what?" Wyatt said as he jumped over two large trash bags full of shit in the doorway into E's room.

"Get out of here!" Ethan screamed.

"Wy," I said. "Go play video games. Leave us alone. Please."

Oblivious to our requests Wy asked, "Where's Mom?"

"She's not here. She couldn't take this. She'd lose it." I said.

"Why does Ethan keep all this stuff?" Wy asked.

"WYATT!" Ethan raged.

"Good question." I said. "But I did ask you to leave. So go. NOW."

"Ah man," Wy said as he jumped across the piles of crap and ran down the hall.

"So, Boy, why do you need this?" I asked again holding up the bag of cut-out cardboard pieces.

"You're making me angry!" He shouted.

"Dude," I started. "If we're going to reorganize and decorate your room so you can have these Lego areas you keep talking about, we have to get rid of all this shit you have rat holed in your room. This is nuts. It's just stuff."

"I like it."

"I know you do son. But I think you think you have to keep every little thing because it reminds you of stuff. But it's just stuff. The memories are in you. In your heart. In your head. You don't need all of this to keep them. Does that make sense?"

Nothing.

"I feel like I'm trapped in a freaking Clean House episode."

"So, let me ask you again. Do you trust me?"

Nothing.

"Ok then. I'm going to throw what I think should be thrown away, away. If I question something, or think we should save it, I'll ask you."

"Got it?"

"Yeah." He said.

"Good," I said as I grabbed a handful of gimme toy crap from a particularly large cache in his upper right dresser drawer which exposed six rolls of scotch tape.

"Fuck me." I'm afraid to say, I said. "There's six roles of tape in this drawer? Mom is always asking where the tape went. Now we know!?!?"

"Don't throw that away." He said ignoring my tape complaint.

"What? This gimme toy crap from Adventure Landing?"

"Don't throw that away. I want to keep it."

"What could you possible need these for?" I asked. "It's junk son. Half of it is broke."

"I like it." He said.

And so it went.

For four grueling hours.

Our very own special episode of Clean House featuring Raymond Babbitt, playing a crazy ass don't touch that, cat-and-mouse game, over each cache of shit.

When it was all over we had seven (four trash, three going to Goodwill) large bags of shit piled in the hallway.

Surveying his room I said, "Your room looks good. Your Mom is going to freak out when she sees it."

"Yeah." He said smiling.

"She won't believe it."

"Yeah." He said. "Let me show her, OK?"

"Sure." I said. "You can show her."

"Let's keep my door closed so I can surprise her. OK?"

"Ok." I answered.

"You know what son?"

"What?"

"I'm proud of you. This wasn't easy for you to do. But you did it anyway. Good job."

Nothing.

Just a sweet and proud smile on his face.

Until I BLOG again...Your father's hip; he knows what cooks.