Gremlins!

In dryers all over the world there is a sub-species of the same creature that gnaws through important automotive belts, drains all the oil in a vehicle, and generally clabbers up any mechanical device.

It is.... the Sock Gremlin.

It's native habitat is unknown for sure, as no one has ever actually seen a sock gremlin, let alone followed one home. Theories vary from alternate dimensions, to mouse holes in laundry room walls, to dryer motors. Personally, I think they live in a symbiotic relationship with the boogey bears that our dogs chase and bark at, in between chasing and barking at the birds.

Anyway, these gremlins are notorious for stealing one sock of a pair, and leaving the poor laundry doer scratching their heads over a pile of "strays." Occasionally they have been known to deposit one mismatched sock, usually in a color and/or pattern that you know you don't own. Whether this is their idea of trade, or just an amusing joke for them, I don't know.

Why am I telling my fabulous readers all of this, when they're sure to have encountered the sock gremlins before? Well, I've discovered a new kind of gremlin, closely related to the sock gremlin.

The Lesser North American Underwear Gremlin. Maybe some of you have run across this particular type before, but I haven't.

I've named it the Lesser North American Underwear Gremlin, because it only seems to be interested in little boys' underwear. Particularly, Middle and Youngest Child's.

When CM moved in to his apartment, he somehow lost all but three pairs of their underwear, so he bought a package of six. Assuming there weren't many accidents, and that CM did laundry once a week (not such a stretch) they should have been able to make do for a while.

Vanishing underwear was at first attributed to Youngest Child. He doesn't always wake up in the middle of the night when his bladder is full. When he'd gone a couple of weeks without a late night accident, CM let him wear his underwear to bed instead of a pull-up.

Of course, when he did have an accident after that, he was embarrassed. So he would hide the soiled underwear and put on a pull-up, when he awoke to the... er... oops.

A small talk with Youngest Child quickly solved that problem, assuring him that it's not the end of the world if he has an accident, but that he needed to put the dirty underwear in the dirty clothes and not hide them.

Most of the time since then, he's put on a pull-up on his own before bed, anyway.

And yet... there are five pairs of underwear for the boys in the house. We looked where Youngest was hiding them before... no dice. Under beds, under dressers, in closets, behind the toilet, in the couch cushions. No sign of the missing tighty-whiteys.

Farmmom chimed in that they might be going down the potty ("undies go down the hoooole!") but CM swears that their toilet doesn't have the juice to suck a pair of underwear down.

Thus... The Lesser North American Underwear Gremlin.

I wonder if they prefer plain white undies or the Spidey-man kind? Or if its more about the scent of dirt and sticky things that hovers around little boys everywhere?

I shall pursue the investigation into the habits and behaviors of the Lesser North American Underwear Gremlin... any other data on the subject is of course, more than welcome.

I wonder if I could catch one for further study... sticky traps maybe?

Ahh Domesticity

I'm feeling much better today, folks, so you can stop worrying. My glands are still a little swollen but the sore throat is going away and my energy is returning. Thanks for all the advice (which amounted to "go to the doc"... HA! We don't need no steenking doctor,) and warm wishes!

Last night CM asked me if I wanted pork chops for dinner tonight. I gave him a look and said "I'm making pot roast tomorrow."

"Oh, really?" He said skeptically.

See, I've been promising him a good old down home pot roast for a while. I had the roast, and had him pick up onion and carrots last week. Then I got sick. For two days the thought of food, making it or eating it, made me want to blow chunks. So no pot roast.

The third day, I was just wiped. I couldn't summon the energy to peel and quarter the potatoes. How sad is that??

Ever since the day I mentioned it last week, CM has been bugging me about the pot roast. When I was sick, the first day he left it alone. The second day, when I was complaining about nothing sounding good, he was throwing out ideas, and gave me this ingenious look and said "Pot roast?"

The third day (yesterday) he told me I wasn't allowed to die, because I still "owed" him a pot roast.

Today... I put the pot roast in the crock pot with the potatoes, carrots, and an onion, and some salt and pepper. It's smelling really good right now. I love my crock pot, have I mentioned that? Granted, I don't love it so much that I don't still want one like Farmmom and Mamaw have, but I still love it. I have two, actually, a big one and a little one.

Given his... disbelieving... attitude about it last night, I pretty much expected him to ask me about it by now. "Did you remember the roast?" He hasn't, yet, but I noticed when I got in his fridge this morning to get the veggies that he thawed the pork chops. Distrustful darling man. Either he thought I would forget, or he's skeptical about my pot roast.

Just because I don't cook very often, he starts to assume that I can't cook. Which makes me want to prove him wrong. Unfortunately most of the things that I enjoy cooking the most (and that I'm damn good at cooking) are fairly expensive, and everyone is on a strict budget. That, and I can't do things like my fantastic whole baked chicken, because none of them will eat chicken on the bone. Philistines. Maybe once I'm back in classes and get my financial aid disbursement I can splurge once or twice, make trash pizza, or fondue.

Given the size of his appetite, and the appetites of the children, I'm not sure that there's going to be any leftovers. I threw in extra veggies just in case, and I might do the frozen corn on the cob that's in the freezer as well. When in doubt, make more sides.

I'm contemplating making mashed potatoes and gravy, but more than one kind of potatoes are usually reserved for holiday dinners, in my family. It might be a bit much. But maybe devilled eggs? Hmmm...