1. Get pregnant and grow for 8.5 months until your tummy can sufficiently support a bowl of chili con carne with cheese and onions.
2. Eat it while semi-reclined.
3. Notice something in a corner of the ceiling. A spiderweb? Dust? Whatever it is, your appetite is suddenly gone.
4. Take the bowl into the kitchen. Note that the area around the base of the sink has a strange tan film. Funny, you didn’t notice it yesterday. What else haven’t you noticed?
5. Sweep every room with narrowed, critical eyes. Everything is filthy-dirty. The baseboards, the light fixtures, the drapery, the backside of pictures on walls, the carpeting under the heaviest bookcase. There are ASHES in the fireplace! There is a small wad of hair on the third stair! Toothpaste in the sink! Feel the tears welling in the corners of your eyes.
6. Collapse on your bed. The comforter smells like an old book. Find someone else in the house and demand this person smell it immediately. If they fail to agree with your assessment, unleash messy sobs all over the nauseatingly stinky and offensive comforter until you remember it is dry clean only.
7. Google the closest dry cleaner. Gasp when you notice coffee rings dried on the cover and several ripped pages. Why can’t anyone in this family take care of anything? Why?
8. Keep your Google spiral going by finding Travel Agencies, Pizza, and then Paint. PAINT! “There isn’t enough paint in the entire universe to cover the disgrace of these walls!” you shout at the gunky, disease-ridden phone book.
9. Realize you feel absolutely desperate and have no idea where to begin completely overhauling and sanitizing your entire house, so you grab the broom and sweep the kitchen. Gosh, you are suddenly very tired.
10. Scoop a bowl of ice cream with chocolate syrup and place it on your tummy as you recline on the couch. A drop of sticky black syrup hits the upholstery. Shrug.
-Gretchen White
Author: Mile High Mamas
