No remorse...

I follow a blogger who lives literally around the corner from my childhood home. Isn't that so weird? She is hilarious and real, snarky and shameless....or so I thought.

Turns out the woman harbors shame...and not only has she shared her own shameful situation with world, but she has invited us all to link up our own shameful situations. I'm not sure to what end...but not everything has to have an 'end'.

I love coming clean regarding my foibles.  And based on her photo and some of the other linkers, I am most shameful. However... interestingly, I feel neither shame nor remorse regarding my totally crap housekeeping skillset. Nonetheless, I am always in for making people feel better about themselves...or at least giving them a good laugh at my expense.

I could do the living-out-of-my-nastyass-car shots, like Jill posted...

...but even though I've got the retro keyboard, a mouse, a pair of ice skates and 

God-knows-what-else, her carpet is way gross...

and the pirate booty she has scattered about adds a certain je ne sais quoi...

interestingly, I think we have the same car.

Then prompted by Neo's Post of Shame, my thoughts wandered to how messy I allow my kids to keep their rooms...

G's room

X's room

Q's room

...but unlike her kid's room, mine are just toy-messy 

while her photo showed dirty dishes and food wrappers.

Of course there is Miss C's disaster area, which happens to be prominently located in the family room...

But how it expands into and joins with the mess in the living room is what bugs my husband more than probably almost anything in our house...

Yes, the lovely, velvet chaise is covered with laundry... always.

Not just on Saturdays like Robot Mommy's.

...and I'm hoping Dot over at Our Adventures with Riley recognizes her table's long-lost twin :)

I could show you guys my garage...

Seriously, how did those burglar-guys find anything of value in this mess?

But....

It was a comment left by AutismWonderland regarding the contents of her freezer that piqued my curiosity about my own freezer...

I wasn't particularly shamed by the old hamburger meat that I haven't tossed in the garbage because I keep forgetting to do that on trash day...and the thought of it rotting out there waiting for trash day totally makes me feel ill...

It does, indeed, say "08/11/11" as the freeze by date.

I put it in the freezer in September...which is why it never got used.

Nor by the Pedialyte pops that moved with us back in December 2009...

...after they had already expired in April of that year!

I think the only thing that really strikes me as super weird...and perhaps somewhat shameful... is this...

In 2007, my eldest had lice.

His little brother had lovely, long, downy, curly hair and a very hyper disposition.

We shaved his head to avoid needing to do any nit-combing or other painstaking treatment.

I put the hair in ziploc baggies and then into the freezer to kill any possible lice.

I still have these four-and-a-half-year old bags of possibly formerly lice-y hair in my freezer...

and we moved in 2009.

I guess I am shamefully sentimental about this hair.

And maybe somewhat of a hoarder?

Do come share your shame...

click on Jillsmo's cute lil' pic to be transported to the magic shame portal...

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My naïveté...

...has just bitten me in the ass...

hard.

I mentioned a few months ago that Pleasantville really isn't so pleasant anymore. Now the bloom is definitely off the rose. The gilded lily is thoroughly tarnished. And I am just an idiot, and it cost my family dearly.

The pleasant façade of Pleasantville

Last night, the burglars came calling.

Yes, we live in a very crime-ridden city...but we have The Gate. *she said pleadingly and with a whimper*  The Gate is supposed to keep the unwanted elements out of our little community. The Gate is supposed to make it safe for me to run at night and for my kids to ride their bikes in the street. The Gate is supposed to protect us from unsavories...like burglars.

This false sense of security has led me to do very naïve things... leave my house and car doors unlocked, for example. I've gone off to pick the kids up from school or go grocery shopping without closing the garage doors on more than one occasion. As with many homes, there is direct access to the house interior via the garage...and at our house, there's a ton of crap in the garage...

What it looks like from the street.

This 'path' is currently totally obstructed and has been for months.

Seriously, how could you find anything of value in this mess?

Last night I failed to lock my car doors. While the neighborhood was sleeping, someone went into my car and 'ransacked' it, found the parking change stash and the garage door opener. They opened the garage door and helped themselves to my photographer husband's equipment. He is devastated. And I feel like an idiot.

It could have been worse. They could have hurt us. Thankfully, all they took were replaceable items. But ...and if you have ever been broken into or robbed or the like, you know what I mean... we are left with a sense of having been violated...trespassed upon...and it feels awful.

You can bet I've learned my lesson insofar as locking doors. And on the off chance those wacko Kirby guys had anything to do with it, I'll be sending any and all solicitors packing from the compound with threats of calling the police.

I'm probably still going to run and bike at night though.

Crack

My crack.

It's pretty cheap at only $2.69 a 10-oz. bag.

Even though I can buy it legally, I do have to hide it.

I hid it in the garage this year, in a bag in a bag and then crammed onto a shelf. This wasn't just to keep others from digging into my stash, but it was also to keep me from inhaling them and going on a bender. As it was, I found myself frequently needing to go into the garage... to check on the laundry, to find the vacuum cleaner, to replace a light bulb, to go through some photo boxes for my husband's new site, to get some art or school supplies for the kids, or... to grab a fistful of crack.

Shove as much as I could into my right-hand jeans pocket.

Eat one right away.

As soon as I was done crunching the candy coating, I had to pop another one into my mouth. And this crunch-pop-crunch-pop would continue until the pocket was empty. All without anyone else in the family being the wiser. Sometimes one of the kids would get a whiff of the telltale scent of chocolate and inquire as to its origin. "Whassat smell? Wherezit coming from?"

Wide-eyed and mouth closed, I'd put my hands up and shrug my shoulders in that "search me" way.

Crack can do that to you. Make you lie to your family.

The only problem with my crack is that it is only available seasonally. I can't stock up. I'd just eat it faster. I only bought two bags this year. What was I thinking?

And what you see is all that's left.

Two.

Only two.

Not anymore.


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