First Born Son has a pair of lounge/ athletic type pants that he bought with his own money. They were costly. They are an off shade of maroon with an impressively sturdy construction- melding an easeful cotton woven blanket quality and the ruggedness of kernmantle rope. They are his favorite pants. He has had them for a while. They have never been washed. I call them his 'stand up pants' because they have so much of his DNA on them they have nearly grown legs to stand up on their own.
I try to spend as little time as possible in his tenement of a bedroom. I drop off his clean and folded laundry in the few places unoccupied by garbage and soiled garments. And I scurry out with dust mice (and possibly real mice) chasing at my heals. But the other day, after not finding a suitable surface on which to place his clean laundry- I decided to tidy up. This entailed sniffing every single sock and pair of boxers in a game of Clean VS Stank sorting. I picked up the favorite pants and before I lifted them to my nose- chucked them in the Stank pile. When I finished, all the dirty clothes were placed in the hamper for First Born Son to bring to the basement for a deep clean. And the fresh clothes were tucked safely in their drawers.
The next day, First Born Son came bounding down the stairs wearing The Pants. I felt myself panic a little in their presence.
'I put those in the dirty hamper! They need to be washed!'
'No they don't. They're fine.' He scoffed, flopping on the couch, embedding slag and feculence into the cushions.
'Have you smelled them? I can smell them from here!' And then he spoke the words which rattled me more than the fetor of The Pants.
'Just because something smells bad, doesn't mean it's dirty.'
I realized that these were not just mere words. Of all the words, these are THE words he has been living by.
Clearly my work with him is not yet done.
On Friday, I'll have another installment of A**Hole in One.
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