Has Anyone Seen My Mind? Because I need help finding it. Surely, I have lost it.
I would get in the car ready for a full day of errands, only to see a big red “E” for empty, when I know I had just filled the tank. I mean, at least I thought I remembered filling the tank. Didn’t I fill the tank?
When I would open the pots and pans drawer in the kitchen, I would see my white measuring cups in there. And not just one or two, but all of them, dumped in there, scattered—like I had lost consciousness mid-chore.
Hunting around for juice glasses became the next daily part of my life. Are they here? Did I leave them in the bathroom? I always put them by the larger tumblers, but where are they now? I know we have juice glasses! I would shout to the ceiling. But why are they missing?
I open the cereal drawer, and in between Cheerios and Apple Jacks, are six stacked juice glasses.
I am losing my mind.
My teens are causing me to be stressed!
I walk through my house and see what is before me and astonished, ask my kids, “Am I the one who left these towels heaped up at the top of the stairs??”
“Yeah, mom,” they would answer. “That was you.”
And then, it came to me. I slowly remembered whose turn it was that day to put away the laundry.
And whose turn it was to fill the gas tank.
And who likes to shove things in drawers, then slam it boom shut quick before anyone sees anything.
This was all My Teens.
When my teens empty the dishwasher, it’s like watching the loudest silent “I don’t give a hoot” in action. They stash things away in places that later make me feel like I’m living with half my brain. They do things that make me question my faculties. They make me scared, it’s me.
Like tonight, when I made their favorite, meatloaf. They love my meatloaf; that’s why I make it. Let me give you this freebie: I use apricot jam. It holds the ground meat together nicely and gives the baked loaf a sweet irresistible aftertaste. You’re welcome.
I made this requested-by-them double batch of meatloaf early in the afternoon because I know they both come home crazed with hunger after their two-hour swim practice. At 3 p.m. I popped the meatloaf in for an hour, set the timer, ran to pick up my non-teenager from school, pulled the meatloaf out at 4:00, and set it atop the stove to let the apricot jam juices circulate and render the meat juicy sweet, so that by 5:00, when the teens were home, we’d have a complete meal—mashed potatoes, salad and mom for the win.
The only thing left to do was let the barbecue sauce simmer on the stove while I started some laundry and waited for everyone to arrive home. But when I walked back into the kitchen, there was no meatloaf atop the stove. Where I swore on a three-foot stack of bibles, I had left it.
And then it began, my line of confused self-questioning: Did I make a double batch of meatloaf? I know I made a double batch of meatloaf. I could have sworn I did the recipe x2.What happened to the meatloaf?!
Unknown to me, my teens had come home early while I was sorting and folding, the washer and dryer noisily running, and the two of them had helped themselves to one-half each of the browned brick-shaped slab.
Never mind the butter and garlic smothered potatoes, Mom. Forget the healthy crisp green salad with cherry tomatoes. Just a fistful of meat is all we kids need.
Have I lost my mind? Didn’t I make meatloaf for tonight?
I swore I made the meatloaf.
So, I’m here to tell you, that before you begin your own down-on-your-hands-and-knees APB alert for missing items and misplaced coffee mugs, and your mind, ask yourself this: Are there teenagers in your house?
I hope, for your sake, the answer to all your mystically placed and combobulated items, is a relief-filled sigh of “yes.“
Yes, you are sane. And now that you have your answer, you can find me here, ready to commiserate, down on the kitchen floor, wondering why in the hell I would jam the knives and forks in between the cutting boards.
Didn’t I just put the knives and forks away in the silverware drawer? Didn’t I?
Related:
Seven Humorous Parent Habits That Teens Will Never Understand
