A Sh*tty Surprise

So last night I was picking up toys in the boys' room. And before you get all perfect-parent on me, yes, I know they should be doing that themselves. You're probably like, "Well. My kids always clean their own rooms" as you peer disdainfully at your smudge-less screen and click the mouse with your perfectly manicured nails. You with your fixed hair and your daytime clothes on. Hmmph.

... No, I don't have a complex, why do you ask?

Anyway. Last night I was picking up the boys' toys because it was just toooooo much of a mess for me to stand around while they picked it up themselves. I don't have the patience for that crap. I want it clean, and I want it clean now, and if I had waited for the kids to do it, it would have gone something like this: throw smallest toy into toybox. Pick up one more. Play with it. Be scolded by Mom. Keep playing with it while inching painfully slowly toward the toybox. Argue because brother is in your way and because IIIIIIIII wanted to pick up that toooooooy!!! Be scolded by Mom.

... Ad infinitum.

It would have taken forever, is my point - and it was like ten minutes 'til eight and nearly bedtime. So I was doing it myself lending a hand just to save my own sanity. And as I was throwing things left and right into the big plastic bin in their closet, and listening to the umpteen toys talking in there - the stuffed frog that says, "That's the red circle!" and the broom that says, "I'm Sweepin' Sam!" and the truck that says, "Now that's some serious power!" and the annoying Barney banjo that just. will. not. QUIT - I made a most unpleasant discovery.

Poop.

But not just any poop. Ohhhhh, no. Not semi-petrified turds that can be easily plucked from their resting place or anything that simple. Nope. It was a bunch of droplets. A spray. As if someone had filled a mister with liquid feces and just went to town on my carpet. And it was dried.

"BOYS!" I bellowed. "How is there poop sprayed on your carpet?"

They both looked at me with blank faces. Only they weren't "I-genuinely-have-no-idea" blank ... they were "I'm-going-to-pretend-I-don't-know" blank. And no one said a word.

So I asked again. "How is there POOP. Sprayed on your CARPET?"

Colin was the first to crack. "I think Cameron did it!"

This would in no way surprise me, so I swiveled toward Cameron. "How did you do this?"

He paused. Then, "Um ..." he began sweetly in the tiniest little voice, "it might just be diarrhea. Maybe I just farted or something."

"You farted on your carpet?" I shrieked. "Pantsless?"

"... Or maybe it was Colin."

Colin protested, but still looked guilty. I was almost positive they both had a better idea of what had happened than they were letting on, but nobody was talking - at least not saying anything that made any sense. I got the feeling that it was some kind of collaboration, like the time Colin had convinced his brother to pee in the baby bathtub ... but seeing as it was an old crime, and the evidence was already dried onto the carpet, the statute of limitations had passed. It was a cold case, and it was nearly bedtime, and I was tired.

Plus, I wasn't even sure I really wanted to know ... ya know??

So I wearily busted out the Resolve carpet cleaner and the paper towels and went to work on the mysterious spray. But you better believe I left the rest of the toys for the boys to clean up - and they did it quickly, without protest.

I can't exactly say it was worth it, but that's one way to get them to pick up their own stuff.