THINGS ONLY PARENTS SAY (WHILE CLEANING THE CAR)

"How did cheese get there?"

"I've vacuumed up enough crumbs to make a pie crust."

"What do you mean, it's not cheese? It's yellow, it smells weird...what is it, then?"

"Maybe acetone will get that out."

"I think it was juice. It's too sticky to be blood."

(after a full vacuuming) "A tooth on the floor? You didn't tell me anything about a tooth on the floor."

THE FLOOR WAS CLEAN FOR FIVE WHOLE MINUTES

The clock read 4:28 when I put away the swiffers and the vacuum cleaner and explained to Noodle and Beast please! don't trash things tonight...

Which they didn't, not at first.

4:33, from somewhere in the kitchen: hurrrrrrk. hurk hurk hurk GACK splat.

Thanks, Herman.

RALPH TRIFECTA NOW IN PLAY

This time it's Noodle who went for the 11:30pm visit to the temple of the porcelain god, plus the 2:30 follow-up. Except she didn't quite get to the church on time, you know?

The one good thing about this is that once the mess is cleaned up, I can be totally juvenile about it and use all the different words for vomit I haven't used since I lived in a fraternity house way back in 198neveryoumind.

Key phrase there being "once the mess is cleaned up". It's paper towel for the bulk of the bootage, followed by disinfectant wipes for the minutiae. I turn the aforementioned suddenness of the reverse peristalsis to my advantage by making sure the kids hurl in a different spot every time, and by the time I'm done pointing their gack this way and that, I get the floors nice and clean and can put off mopping for another week. Ha!

Honey? Sweetie? I was totally joking about that, you know that, right? Right?