Permission Granted

One evening, while putting away a few of the usual odds and ends that my roommates left lying around, like shoes, backpacks, shoes, softball bags, shoes, and shoes (alas, no teenager has ever forgotten to put away his or her phone), I stumbled upon a brand new category of things that takes not putting things away to a new level. In fact, it was so concerning that, I actually questioned whether my kids felt free to put certain things away. In other words, were my children waiting for permission?

Here’s what happened: I wandered by the cookie jar and noticed the three packages of Oreos that I had placed there a few days prior, when I came home from the grocery store. Oddly fascinated with the fact that the cookies were still untouched, given the fact that I was directed by no less than 75% of my children to buy them, or they would kill themselves, I decided to put them into the cookie jar. Because that’s how I roll when I’m in a loving mood. And also so that I wouldn’t be a hypocrite, which everyone knows is the worst type of crite one can be. So I decided to put the cookies all the way away.

So I opened the first package via the little re-sealable strip going down the center of the package.

Alas, about six cookies from the center row were missing. Clearly, the package’s re-sealable mechanism had been activated—either by one of my kids, or a hungry stock boy. So I put the remaining cookies in the cookie jar, which sat a mere two inches away. Well, now, that’s not exactly true, I admit. The cookie packages were actually touching the cookie jar.

Then, I opened the second package of cookies. As my 14-year old daughter would say, “Same.”

A feeling of dread washed over me. Could it be that one or even more of my roommates, upon finding the first package of cookies missing the most easily accessible handful of cookies, decided to open another, completely sealed package, as a way of avoiding the exhaustion that would have surely resulted from opening the first package from the sealed end and sliding the tray of cookies out?

So I opened the third package of cookies. You guessed it: same mother fucking findings, as my 14-year old daughter’s mother would say.

Then, it hit me: Perhaps they were waiting for permission to fill the cookie jar. And so here that is:

“Dear Children: You hereby have my permission to fill up the mother fucking cookie jar when there is a mother fucking package of cookies sitting next to it. Taking the middle portion of the center row of cookies out of the package three times is mother fucking nonsense.