Why I Can't Solve the Fruit Problem

So I decide to follow the suggestion from wifemotherexpletive and keep my fruit in a large bowl on the dining room table.  I head to the dining room table and see that it's covered with stuff: the CD collection my spouse started culling through on New Years Day...art projects (damn the art projects!) ...newspapers ...folded laundry waiting to be whisked away by the Laundry Fairy (whose name is Bruce) and tucked into dresser drawers ...several sticks carved into extremely sharp weapons by my 11 year old ...and a whole bunch of other stuff.

I can't put my fruit bowl there.

But wait–I CAN put my fruit bowl there if I just organize stuff a little bit!  So I head to the closet where we keep games, DVDs, and CD's, thinking I'll just put the un-culled collection back where it goes.  Step one in making the table a proper fruit bowl spot.

I can't get to the closet door.  There are too many soccer backpacks, soccer balls, sweatshirts, and puzzle pieces in the way.  And a great big bin full of wooden train tracks and building blocks.  Damn Thomas.

Ooooooh-kay, I think; I'll just go out into the garage and re-make a space for the soccer backpacks.  So I head to the garage.  Being in here reminds me that I need to address the laundry pile.  Yesterday, my kids cleaned their rooms -- which I had asked them to do because after folding mountains of laundry, I couldn't bring myself to go into their rooms and put any of it it away.  I could have asked them to put their own laundry away, but I knew where that would end up: folded laundry dumped into already disasterous rooms willy nilly.  I figured I could still make them put it all away, but after their floors were once again in plain view.

When my kids clean their rooms, I have one refrain: "Just because it's on your floor doesn't mean it's dirty!  Fold that stuff and put it away!  I don't want to waste water and time re-washing clothes that don't need it!"

And I sort of believe them that they separated the clean from the dirty, except that when I look at the pile of so-called dirty clothes on the floor of the garage, and when  I contemplate that a mere 24 hours ago, I had straightened up in here and done all the current laundry, I have to fight the urge to stab the 1-800-GOT-GYPSIES icon on my phone's contact list.

OOOOO-KAY!  Get some laundry going and THEN make space for the soccer crap.  Empty the dryer.  Fold the finished load.

But wait.

I can't put the folded laundry on the laundry table because it's piled high with coats and jackets, the coats and jackets I pulled off of the hooks and nails that grace the walls along the narrow steps leading from my kitchen down into my garage.  I did that a few weeks ago, because I was tired of the cluttered coat and jacket look and because they are forever falling onto the floor, where people step on them with dirty shoes, landing them in yes, you guessed it, the laundry pile.  But I haven't found a place for the coats and jackets yet!  So...I had to shove all that stuff to one side and make room for the folded laundry.

Back to the task at hand.  Or rather, back to whatever is currently interrupting me from the task at hand.  Move wet stuff from washer to dryer.  Start washer up again.  Curse the children.  Step back, sort the remaining dirty stuff into baskets.

I turn my attention back to making space for...something...what was it?  Soccer crap!  That's it!  Ooookey-dokey...where can I put that stuff?  If I just rearrange this pile of extra chairs, maybe I can stack the backpacks in a nice neat row next to them.  Should I sell these chairs?  Finally recover them?  Donate them?  I give many precious minutes over to this issue.  I tried giving them away on Freecycle a few months ago and the people who said they were going to come get them flaked on me.  Plus, I'm afraid the Goodwill truck will reject me; sometimes Goodwill denies larger furniture items, and I don't want a repeat of that ridiculously frustrating experience.  What the heck, I'll try to sell them for a few bucks.

To sell them, I need to take pictures of them.  To do that, I need to get them into the kitchen.  To do that, I need to set up a staging area in my kitchen.  To do that, I need to clear off my kitchen table and take out all the recycling that's been piling up.  To do that, I need to take a little break and have a snack.  Thank God the fruit bowls are right there in easy reach on my kitchen counter.

So you see, I can't solve the fruit bowl problem.  I can't solve the problem because of art projects, CDs, soccer backpacks, Thomas trains, mountains of laundry, coats and jackets, shabby chairs, bags of recycling, and finally because of children.

I can't find a good place to keep my fruit bowl because I have children.  Which is why 1-800-GOT GYPSIES is in my speed dial.

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