SPILLVILLE pop. 4

This morning, I had exactly 44 seconds to get downstairs, start a load of laundry, take out a load, grab something out of the car & bring the laundry & the thing from the car, back up the steps & into our room....
...to be back upstairs to be sure that none of the children choked on their breakfast, while they were momentarily left unattended...
OR to be sure Gabe didn't catapult himself out of his seat as he is rarely "clicked in" these days.

No easy feat for an overweight mom who is grossly out of shape.

While I was filling the washer with random, yet easy to dump, clothes, I heard Flynn scream. "Help Mom, Help!"
I just kept throwing the clothes in because I knew I was almost done.
"Help Mom."
"Nevermind Mom, I've got it."
That's the part that really alarmed me & thus, made me even faster.

I had a feeling it involved a spill. So when I came around the corner, I wasn't too suprised to see Flynn's sticky (soy) milk, all, over, the, table. A whole glass.
She was actually making matters worse by "taking care of it" & was sweeping it toward her with her napkin.

I was in a hurry. I had to leave soon for a staff meeting & still had no make up on & no one was dressed & I needed to round up my stuff. You know the drill.

So, it was all to easy for me to start getting mad. "Flynn! Darn it!" I felt my blood pressure go up & got even more mad to see her sweeping it onto her lap & into all the little grooves on her booster.

Then I remembered, 10 hours earlier, "The Great Spill of 2007", as Jeff & I have dubbed it:

The WHOLE fam was waiting out in the car & I wanted to get them each a cup of juice 'to go.'
So I quickly grabbed the GALLON JUG (you'd think we have a family of 6 rather than 4) that was BRAND NEW & VERY FULL. Pulled it out of the fridge & just as though it were filmed & played in slow motion that very full & heavy jug dropped straight down out of my hands. Down to the floor with such a ker-plop that the entire bottom literally imploded. Meaning the bottom of the jug completely dismembered itself from the rest of the jug. Like waves from the ocean the juice came GUZZLING out of the jug. It was happening so fast that I literally screamed so loud that Jeff heard me in the driveway, where he & the kids were waiting in the car.
I had no idea what to do. The juice was like a tidal wave & it was flowing so fast toward the carpeted livingroom & rolling under the appliances.
Oh yeah baby, when I do it, I do it right.

Jeff ran in & told me I needed to calm down. But all I could do at that point was to cry because a.) what a mess & b.) it was a brand new bottle of juice & we all know how much $3 means to us right now.

I cleaned the mess up while he returned to the kids but not before it rolled under the stove AND the refrigerator & found the hole where the waterline of the icemaker runs, which meant the juice poured down onto the a/c duct & then poured & dripped into the laundry room...all over the washer & dryer & a BLUES rug & all over the floor & anything in that room.

I said all that to give this Festusian Proverb:

"Don't cry over spilt milk..
or spilt juice."