Month: August 2015

What’s Under YOUR Couch Cushions?

/ DeeDeeFilly / 4 Comments

I’ve just emerged from excavating my desk — a long-lost piece of furniture I’d like to start using again if I could somehow find it.

In my archaeological dig, I just unearthed this treasure.

Couch contents

“Couch History:” A Dusty Time Capsule of What Lies Beneath by Lucy Filiatreault.

My daughter likes to “research” stuff. This usually involves Googling weird animals like Tasmanian Tigers (which I wasn’t aware was a real thing) and typing up “facts” about them.

Apparently she also turns her scientific eye now and again to the mysteries of home — such as what mysteries lurk under our sofa cushions. As shown above, she has lovingly curated this array of items and TAPED THEM TO A PIECE OF PAPER.

Isn’t that just GRAND?

Plastic thingy

I’m just happy it’s something plastic and not something dead.

As Part II of her painstaking research, she also took time to document what littered the floor of our home. (At least by getting taped onto this piece of paper, that crap got picked up EVENTUALLY.)

Floor history

She appears to imply that said “piece of papper” had lain our carpet since 1964. I demand carbon dating.

Bandaid wrapper

And a BandAid from 1941?? It might have been there since the Bush administration, but FDR? P-shaw.

What a keen scientific mind! And what a lovely tribute to her mother’s unswerving devotion to homemaking!

May she long cherish these findings (a wrapper from her beloved root beer barrels, the remains of a bandage from a boo-boo once blessed with a kiss, a piece of hay from the box of that infernal rabbit we bought her) as mementos of a home full of crap, yes, but also full of lovvvve.

Just as importantly, may her inquisitive mind never lead her to the seedy underbelly of our station wagon’s backseat.

That mouse family just wants to eat our leftover Goldfish crackers in peace.

(Help a mother out. Report back to me on what weird stuff you’ve found under your sofa cushions…or if you dare, what smells are emanating from your minivan? We’re all in this together.)

The End of the Summer Stare-Down

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My dog stares at me. All the time.

Without a sound. Without playful pants-leg tugging. WITHOUT CEASING.

She just stares in dead silence — like one of those psychics who can bend spoons with her mind. She’s sweet and all, but I figure this animal’s either trying to mystically transport a leash into my hand or set me on fire. I can’t be sure.

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Can you see the pressure I’m under here?

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During this particular stare-down, I’m trying to eat breakfast. I can only assume she wants me to fling my bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats across the room in a fit of rage so she can lick up her share.

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Here I’m trying to kick back on the screened-in porch. Ah, but there will be no escape from THE STARE. She will not be denied.

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I can feel her eyes drilling into mine while I wash dishes: THERE ARE CHIPMUNKS. RELEASE MEEEEE. 

When she hasn’t retired to someone else’s bed, this dog is standing on all fours, waiting, wishing, staring. Boring holes into me with her burning expectation and palpable disappointment. It’s kind of her thing.

Oddly enough, it’s pretty much the same thing my kids do to me all summer long. They too have perfected the LONG PLEADING STARE.

“Can I play video games?” LONG PLEADING STARE. CHESHIRE CAT GRIN.

“Can I go on Video Star and make a music video about our staring dog?” LONG PLEADING STARE. BATTED EYELASHES.

“Can we go to ____ today (fill in the blank with some ungodly expensive water park/aquarium/someplace I would never want to go in a million years)?” LONG PLEADING STARE.

“Can we watch ‘Teen Titans Go’ all morning long til our retinas are burned to a crisp?” LONG PLEADING STARE. (It’s far too early in the a.m. for this conversation, but through slitty eyes, I assume my children look a lot like this):

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There’s been A LOT of staring this summer.

I get tired of being the bad guy so I’ve crumbled under the stare-downs more times than I care to admit. On perfectly lovely summer days, my children have watched too much of everything. (In fact, they’re doing that now so I can write about it.)

But sometimes on my stronger days, I return the stare-down with a good ol’ fashioned garbage can to lug out. Or a leash to walk that relentless dog. Or heaven forbid, a summer math packet. That’ll learn ’em.

Here’s the stare I get then.

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Summer is a blessing and a curse. There’s easy laziness one minute, dead-eyed boredom the next.

There’s happy-happy family time one minute, followed by “stop-touching-me-I-hate-you-I’m-telling-Mom-you-said-Shut-Up” the next.

And while we’ve taken a nice little sabbatical from schoolbooks, there are still plenty of dirty looks to go around. They’re just not coming from teacher. They’re coming from MOM.

I can stare too, you know.

I’m much sadder than usual to see summer end, to tell you the truth. Both kiddos are inexplicably bound for middle school, which traumatizes me.

But I still have man’s best friend to keep our little tradition of doleful disappointed staring alive until next summer.

A comforting thought indeed.

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Hap-hap-happy back-to-school everyone!