Kathleen McCall:
Occasional�� Muse�

2001-06-13 - 7:23 a.m.

The Simple Life

I miss the days of gray socks.

When oldest child was a toddler, I somehow bought her a jumbo package of gray socks. I don't remember why I chose gray. I would guess that was all that was available. It always seemed as though there were a huge baby boom in our town when she was born, because throughout her life, the size she's needed has always been the size the stores didn't have. So she had gray socks instead of pastel. It was one of those happy accidents.

All the socks matched. Nirvana. All matches, all the time.

Somehow, I let this one slip away from me. Now we have pastels, and brights, and socks with kitties and socks with duckies, and we have no matches, ever. I've been unable to sell the kids on the idea that mismatched socks are a statement of creative individualism, so we hunt socks every morning. Gray was so much easier. I want the gray socks back.

I want gray dishes, too, while we're at it. Years ago I bought the plastic divided plates the kids are so fond of, and drinking cups, in multiple colors. Now we bicker over who gets the blue plate, or the plate that matches Mom's, or the cup that matches the plate that matches Mom's, until I am ready to dump the entire dinner directly onto the table and shriek, "THERE! Now we ALL match! Shut up and EAT!"

If we had gray children' underpants, I wouldn't be standing in the hallway, holding up a pair of flowered panties while both girls solemnly vow that they've never seen them before in their lives. Whose are they then, MINE? I hold them up next to my ass. Look, girls - my ass, these panties. Ass, panties. Get REAL.

I have a gray car, so that's okay, but it needs simplifying too. It needs three less doors. A car should have only one entrance, and order of entrance should be by age. This should be a state law, so I don't have to be The Enforcer. To wit, no passenger may climb over any other passenger at any time, so seats are apportioned by entry order. It is a violation of this law to whine, complain, or strike out at said fellow passengers. Shut up and GET IN.

Gray umbrellas, gray lunchboxes. Gray toothbrushes. Use the first one you touch. Unsanitary, you think? Do you realize we are talking about children who think spit bubbles are funny, who would eat candy they had to pry off the car floor? Of course, they can't use a toothbrush if the other child has breathed on it. But if all toothbrushes all gray, who would know? Shut up and BRUSH.

Gray beach towels. I need them. No more eye-rolling vicious moody silence because you are too old to be seen with a Simba towel at the pool. No more noisy weeping because the Bug's Life towel is not YOUR towel and YOUR towel is not out of the laundry yet. Grab a gray towel, dry UP and dry OFF. NOW.

Perhaps we ought to make our children earn their colors. Go with gray until we start to hear things like, "No, that's okay - you go first" (bath-taking doesn't count for this one) or "Here, you can use mine." Until we start to see hampers that have only dirty clothes in them, and stop finding dirty socks under the sofa cushions. Until they reach a level of maturity and responsibility where they take care of their own things, and share them willingly. Until they're at least twenty-seven.

Never mind about the clothes on MY bedroom floor. At least I don't cry over the color of my coffee cup. And I know my own underwear when I see it.

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