Mission: Impossible

I was putting away some folded laundry in the kids' room. Disgust filled me as I realized I couldn't even see their floor. We usually have them pick up their bedroom before bedtime, but I've been working every night this week, which means Ben has been putting them to bed. Which means that they don't get baths, scripture reading, or cleaning time. It's special.

I seethed as I looked around at the mess, absently picking up a discarded coloring book. To my great surprise, there, on the cover of the coloring book, was a picture of my brain! And my brain started talking to me! It said, "Agent Kar, we are experiencing a high volume of toys compared to the volume available in your kids' room. They don't play with about 75% of their toys. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to get rid of a bunch of these without their discovering it. If you can get the toys from the bedroom to your trunk, you will have succeeded in your mission. This message will self-destruct when you throw this coloring book away, which has been untouched by your children for roughly two years."

Cue the Mission: Impossible theme song.

I grabbed four other coloring books, exited the room, looked left and right, and ran into the kitchen, tossing the coloring books into the garbage. Realizing that the kids would discover the coloring books and protest loudly that yes they do TOO use them, I decided to take the garbage out to the dumpster. But I knew I couldn't take the usual route through the living room to the back door. They would surely see the bright books through the translucent lining of the garbage bag.

So I went out the front door, opened the garage, went through the back door of the garage, ran into the alley, and dumped the garbage bag. Phew. I went back into the house the way I came out of the house.

I tiptoed back into the messy room, checking first to make sure the kids were still mesmerized by The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack. Yep, they were. Time to do some more de-junking.

The things that might sell nicely at the children's second-hand store, I would deposit into my tinted-windowed truck. The things that were too far gone, I would take to the dumpster, one bag at a time. I was making pretty great progress.

I started tackling the Barbie box when, to my horror, Dylan appeared at the door, mouth agape. "You're getting rid of our TOYS??" he exclaimed.

"No, Dyls, none of yours. Of course none of yours. Just Sadie's. See? The Barbies. Just Sadie's stuff."

The lie worked. Little did he know that all of his crappy, plastic, miniature toys from last year's Halloween carnival (which he never plays with) were in their dumpsterey grave at that moment.

Dylan was far from placated. "But Mom, what if she wants to play with the Barbie stuff sometime?"

"Dyls, she hasn't played with it since the second she got it, at Christmas. It has sat here in the bin, looking promiscuous." (She got Bedroom Barbie or something. She is literally wearing lingerie. It's super-awesome.)

"What's 'promiscuous'?"

"I'll tell you when you're older. Look, don't tell Sadie, okay?"

"But I thought you said that lying is bad."

"Ummmm, yes, usually it is. But this is for a greater purpose. If we clean the extra toys out that nobody uses, then you won't have to clean up as much stuff every night."

His eyes lit up at that prospect. Then they clouded over. "But Daddy doesn't make us clean up at night."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah. But Mommy does, and next week she won't be so busy working."

That did it. He kept my secret.

When Ben came home, I hugged him. Sadie was right there, eating some canteloupe at the table. This necessitated a good Mission:Impossible tactic: while we were hugging, I whispered in his ear. "Hey, while I'm at work tonight, don't take the kids anywhere in the car. I have some D.I. stuff in there. I'm waiting until they're in bed to move the stuff from the truck to the trunk of the red car, where they won't see it. And then I can take the red car covertly to D.I. on Saturday." Ben chuckled, then pulled away to give me a high-five. He likes when I de-junk. When it's not his stuff I'm de-junking.

I didn't get a chance to get into Dylan's and Sadie's Miscellaneous Drawers. Oh, I cannot wait to tackle those. They are full of sooo much crap. It will require much sneaking around. Possibly one of those sideways somersault moves. And maybe one of those cheesy masks that the Mission: Impossible people are always wearing.