When we moved into our house, there was nothing in the closets. Nothing. Not even a pole rack.
This was actually okay for the kids, who, due to the fact that we stored a bunch of crap in their closets, never had closets, really. All of their stuff just went into their dressers.
But for Scott and me, this was a little uncomfortable. I don't even have a dresser, so I've been living out of a suitcase for a month. We bought some garment racks, and managed to make do, but it wasn't exactly awesome. So you can imagine my joy when today dawned.
Today was the day they were coming to install the closets.
Shelves and drawers and poles, racks for scarves and belts, cubbies for sweaters, dividers for purses.
I pulled all the boxes and suitcases out of the closet spaces for the installation this morning and then I shooed the kids downstairs for breakfast.
"Oh, I am tired," Kai said, in the melodramatic way he adopts when he wants something. He'll complain mightily of being hot, for example, knowing that the ice cream guy is right over there, and OMG what a coincidence! Ice cream would help him cool off in a flash.
Kai sidled toward the stairs. Well, in retrospect he sidled. I didn't recognize the sidling for what it was at the time, busy as I was stuffing lunch boxes into backpacks and signing Kai's journal and cajoling Ryan into her sneakers.
He was alone in his room for maybe five minutes, and he had locked the door. None of this is especially unusual, but I haven't figured out how to jimmy the lock on his door yet.
"Kai, you have til I count five to open this door, or you lose the iPad for another week," I called.
I heard hasty footfalls and the door opened immediately. I chivvied him down the stairs and off to school.
The closet guys showed up on time and were soon banging away upstairs. I took the opportunity to vaccuum and dust, unload the dishwasher and load it up again, puzzle over the powder room sink which has no mechanism by which to lift the stopper.
I moseyed upstairs right before lunch to check on the progress.
Ryan's closet looked awesome, a perfect space for her to grow into. Belly shirts from Wet Seal will hang there before I even know it.
And then I went in to Kai's room, and saw, with no small amount of shock or dismay, the following:
In the five minutes between being made aware of his closet and when I'd extracted him from his room, he'd totally Harold-and-the-Purple-Crayoned it--big swirls of blue marker festooning the once-pristine walls, and now impossible to completely remove behind the hardware for the shelves. He'd clearly planned this while he was eating his Cheerios, the whole bit about being tired a ruse to get back upstairs.
One of the workers came in at that moment.
"I wish you'd told me about the marker before you installed all of this," I said, taking a moment to transfer my anger and frustration onto the nearest human being.
He looked into Kai's closet.
"Oh, yeah, that," he said. "I thought it was a design."
It is now.
Kai was going to get his iPad back tomorrow.
It looks like by the time he sees it again, it's going to be very old technology indeed.
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