My wife is really good about not letting things get to her, but one thing that really bothers her is unorganized clothing. 99% of things, no problem.  A messy dresser drawer, not good.  Well anyway for some reason the boys have dresser drawers keep getting more and more disheveled.  Part of it is the addition of long sleeve shirts and pants to the mix, but the problem seems larger than just a change of season.  Not only were the drawers a mess, they were busting out of their respective dressers.  Personally, I would take the clean batches of fresh clothing from the laundry room and just shove them into the drawers.  Problem solved?  Nope, if only it were that easy.  In addition to it causing my wife stress, the bursting dresser drawers also lead to a frustrating conversation with the boys every morning, “I don’t have any long sleeve clothing.”  “Yes, you do, in your dresser.”  “No, I just looked.”  Long sleeved clothing wait bunched up in the dresser for a child who glances even close to the right place.

Given that the children complaints were mounting and my poor wife’s disheveled clothing stress was peaking, today I tackled the messy dressers. The task was certainly necessary, but somewhat boring, especially since it is NPR pledge week and even though I mailed in my membership dues, I am still subjected to the painful financial pleas of the fund drive.  One bit of excitement, however, as I sorted through the clothing, was that I needed to continually chase the dog away from a stuffed dog toy that for some odd reason 5-year-old Ben has adopted as one of his stuffed animals.  I certainly think Kirby the Beagle would have a good argument in a court of law, if he chewed up the toy, given the fact that it actually is a dog toy, but I just did not want to deal with the whole child versus dog grievance process, so there I was with clothing in hand, continually shooing the dog away from a toy that should really be his.  During this clown-car-but-instead-clothing-in-a-dresser-drawer process, it struck me, there is a sort of clothing disparity in the Paulsen house.  Between the kids, they have approximately 4,000 t-shirts each that fit, while I own about 4.  Sad, but true.  If I shed close to 150 pounds and got much shorter, I would have a great selection of clothing at my disposal.  Until that time, I must sadly continue my purge of children Summer clothing and deny the dog his right to tear apart a stuffed toy.  Injustice reigns.