My children have always believed in magic. When they were little it was the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. Now it’s the Toilet Paper Fairy, the Laundry Bunny and … well .. Santa still makes the top three so long as he comes through with the goods.
If avoided a reproductive dip in the gene pool, you’ve probably never heard of the Toilet Paper Fairy. Late at night, when the house is quiet and dark, the Toilet Paper Fairy emerges from under the stairs and checks the thickness of each installed roll. Deficient rolls are replaced from the Strategic Toilet Paper Reserves which are stashed in an undisclosed location known only to the Toilet Paper Fairy and Vice President Cheney.
At least that’s what my children think.
More than once I have shown them the complicated procedure which involves going to the basement and fetching up a new roll. This seems to tax their intellectual gifts which is odd because they’ve both made the honor roll more than once. Evidently changing toilet paper isn’t on the curriculum in your modern progressive high schools.
Neither is washing their own clothes, closing cereal boxes, rolling the top down on potato chip bags, or emptying the dishwasher. These tasks are handled (respectively) by the Laundry Bunny, the Cereal Box Wizard, the Potato Chip Leprechaun and Larry the Dishwasher Gnome. Just ask my kids.
It’s our own fault, really. When they were little we encouraged their sense of childlike wonder. Every day was a new adventure in a magical world. Is it any surprise they believe they now live in an enchanted realm where invisible servants take care of all of the menial and degrading tasks? Or, could it be that the kids have been on to us all along and they’ve played the “sense of wonder” card to avoid doing work.
Despite my lack of success with Toilet Paper lessons, my wife set out to teach the children the art of laundering clothes. Adolescent boys are, as a class, suspicious of soap. Asking them to do laundry is like inviting Superman to spend a cheerful afternoon working on the Kryptonite rock pile down in the prison yard.
My wife is a hopeless optimist.
She started her lesson by carefully explaining the necessity of sorting out the dirty clothes. They stared back blankly; hadn’t the Laundry Bunny always done that in the past? A little applied psychology – she threatened to feature their video game console into a performance art piece entitled “Enraged Mom Smashing Expensive Electronics” – got the boys motivated to sort.
The motivation lasted all the way through steps eighteen to twenty-one inclusive – moving the clean (but wet) clothes into the dryer, closing the door, setting the timer, and pressing start. Then they vanished. Not the clothes – they rattled and rumbled in their mystery trip through the world of electrically-heated moisture removal – it was the kids who disappeared. For the remainder of the day our children were but a memory. In time my wife gave in and took over the Laundry Bunny’s chore of laundry folding.
I adore my wife for trying. It’s vital that the kids learn these skills. Besides, the sooner we get them “doing for themselves” the sooner we’re off the hook as their servants. We are just a day coat and black skirt away from being domestics in our own home. Sometimes I have nightmares where I’m standing beside my TV-mesmerized sons holding out a silver charger with bottles of Mountain Dew (“the yellowish soda for kids who aren’t naturally hyper”) and asking if that will be all. With a distracted wave one of them gives me leave to go so long as I polish his skateboard before knocking off for the evening.
I really feel for the young women my sons will eventually marry. Sometime after the honeymoon, I fully expect a call from an irritated bride demanding an accounting for my son’s belief in Larry the Dishwasher Gnome and asking just who (or what) is the Potato Chip Leprechaun?
I’d never admit to having held these beliefs myself, but I must have. Most of the arguments during our first year of marriage centered around the distribution of labor. My wife felt that the Laundry Bunny wasn’t doing his share. Only she had confused me with the Laundry Bunny and kept suggesting that if I were any lazier I’d risk being diagnosed with catatonia.
I was very cross with the Laundry Bunny. The only reason I didn’t drag Larry into it was that our tiny basement apartment didn’t have a dishwasher. It barely had room for the bathtub I occasionally used to clean the pots and pans.
It was a sad day when I realized that the Laundry Bunny wasn’t coming any more. My sorrow was tempered slightly when I failed at sorting and turned my best white shirt pink. My beloved declared me hopeless at laundry and took the task back. In exchange, I agreed to never sort clothes again. This is a trick that I’ve never mentioned to my children for obvious reasons.
Besides, they’re natural sorters and (with the exception of the whole folding clean clothes thing) have given up believing in the Laundry Bunny. With concerted effort I’ve convinced them that Larry has moved and the Dishwasher is their responsibility. Cereal boxes and potato chips remain unsealed, but I’ve made my peace with that. The matter of the Toilet Paper Fairy remains undecided.
I’ve tried threats, but I’m not as good with them as my wife — I’d miss the video game system if it got trashed. I’ve tried intensive training, but all I get are blank looks. The only thing that consistently works it acting as the Toilet Paper Fairy’s proxy.
I might as well get used to it. The kids are growing up and will move out one day. Once they’re gone, when the chores go undone, I’ll literally have no one to blame but myself.
