Messy mom guilty as charged

My family and I watched a television show not long ago about the power of observation. The show depicted police officers looking for subtle clues to decide on a suspect’s guilt or innocence.

In one true scenario, an officer was on the lookout for a stolen red Mustang without tags. It just so happened that two were parked outside a convenience store. The officers staked out the place and witnessed a man with his head down walk quickly toward one of the vehicles, toss his trash in a nearby can, jump in, slam it into reverse and drive away. A second man soon followed, except this one took his time, glanced at the policeman and nodded, turned up his bag of chips, and then wadded up the bag and threw it in the backseat before casually getting in the vehicle and carefully backing out. Who’s the real crook?

The answer is … number two. What gave him away?

“Who throws trash into his own car?” asked the show’s host, incredulously.

At this point, my entire family turns and looks at me, and I know what they are thinking, “We’d better save some bail money.”

My grandmother, the tidiest person I ever knew, would be appalled if she saw the back seat of my car. It’s true, I’m embarrassed to admit, I tend to throw things back there. It’s usually as I drive, and it’s usually with great flourish. For example, I will finish off my bottle of sparkling water, say “Ah,” and toss it in the back.

At which point, I will usually get a sounding chorus of outraged voices going, “MOM!”

My messy car has not been the only source of admonishment from my children. I also have trouble with papers. You know all the hundreds of thousands of papers that the kids bring home from school every day. Why, why, why so many papers? And, where, where, where is a parent supposed to put them? I tried organizational boxes with the kids’ names on them, the dining room table, behind the pepper jar in the kitchen, and for a long while, on top of the pool table, but since we sold that, I’ve now regulated them all to a big, fat stack. You need your physical form, your field trip form, your science Olympiad schedule? Check the stack.

It worked pretty well until my son had to ride the bus for the first time this year. He came home and said, “Where is my bus form?”

I told him to - say it with me - “Check the stack.”

He looked there, and then we went down the list of other locations: behind the pepper jar, on the dining room, and even his book bag, which is the equivalent of the Lost and Found, but no bus form.

“Just get another one tomorrow,” I advised.

“Um, I will, but I don’t think she’ll like it much.”

Next day, he came back with the form, and I dutifully filled it out. I took him to school that morning, and he rode the bus home and promptly asked if his sister could pick him up the next day.

I looked at him and said, “You lost your form, didn’t you?”

Turns out, the bus driver told him that was his last one, and he wasn’t going to get on the bus without it. We eventually found it. No, not in the stack but tossed in the backseat of my car, along with some empty sparkling water bottles, and some other miscellaneous papers.

Please don’t judge me. I've already called the Mom police, and they are on their way. I’ll be in the red Mustang finishing up my chips.