Glass Half Full, Carton Empty

Last weekend, I awoke and shuffled into the kitchen to make people breakfast.  (Two thought simultaneously went through my head as I typed that - 1) "Every day I'm shuff-uh-lin" and 2) the frontier wives who prepared the thresher's dinners in Little House books.  They seemed like tired women.)

So I make the coffee first, because when you are on an airplane and you're going to crash they very specifically point out in the safety videos that when the oxygen masks drop, you should put yours on first and THEN the child's, because you have to be alive to keep them alive.  Coffee comes first.

I made a move to four different breakfast staples, all with the same result.  Exhibit #1:

I go for the obvious choice - Eggo waffles.  This makes it seem like they are getting a treat without me doing much.  Who can resist the warm buttery syrupy-ness of an Eggo waffle??  But there was no "Leggo my Eggo" in my house, because SOMEONE ate the last one and put the damn box back in the freezer.

I move on to cereal.  Not as impressive, but hey, they'll eat, right?  Box #1 - EMPTY.  Box #2 - EMPTY.  Seriously.  WTF, Family?

Maybe we'll just have toast for breakfast.  Toast and some nice cranberry apple juice, so we can carb up and prevent urinary tract infections, two birds dead.  Oh, but wait.  Someone put the juice back in the fridge, EMPTY.  Not even the crafty "oh there's enough for half a juice glass for someone, I'll put it back".  It was completely empty, no backwash, no nothing.

I stood there for a moment while I did my angry cartoon character imitation.

The thought bubble on this is not yet rated, but is surely inappropriate for delicate ears.

Then I had my coffee and stared at the empty boxes and changed into this:

Because honestly people.  How do you lecture kids on THROWING AWAY THE BOX WHEN IT'S EMPTY?  We all know how it's going to end.  I'm explaining things slowly and loudly, as though I'm talking with foreigners who don't know English, but no matter how loud or how slow I may speak, they just aren't going to get it.  They are going to look at me with the "When is she going to STOP?" face, and look at each other and roll their eyes and hope I don't catch them.   (You'd BETTER hope I don't catch you!)  These children are 15, 12 and 9.  How will they ever have jobs or pay taxes or get themselves to a dentist regularly if they can't throw away the box?  These are the issues I grapple with on a daily basis.  This must've been covered in the 8 a.m. classes I missed in college.

As a side note, take a look at my iPod:

Whenever Oldest Daughter is in the kitchen, she brings her iPod 4th gen 8 gb down, removes my old grandma iPod from the speaker, and plays her music, which is fine.  Until she leaves the kitchen and leaves Grandma laying on the counter to collect toast crumbs up in her craw, and then perhaps she won't play someday.  Put my iPod back in my iPod player, dammit!  Do you know how long I waited for the Beatles to be on iTunes!?!  Have some respect!

Do your people leave empty boxes everywhere?  Because I'm about to call the ACME company and order some kind of elaborate trap for the next person who leaves one in the cabinet.  I'm sure it won't end well for me, but at least I'll have done SOMETHING.

And Mom?  I'm sorry for when I surely did this to you.  You are a saint.