Tag: parenting

Today is a dark day. I have learned a valuable, extraordinarily painful lesson:

No matter how high the shelf, no matter how great the obstacles, no matter how little time I dare have my back turned… A bottle of nail lacquer is never safe on the island.

Today is a dark (and surprisingly pink) day indeed.

At least one of the tiny natives appears to have manifested a new power: the ability to manipulate and multiply liquid. It seems impossible, and yet I can think of no other explanation for the current state of the island. What was originally two half-full cups of water by the sink and a nearly-empty bottle of lemon juice in the garbage can has now become a veritable flood on the island floor. Even as I attempt to dry it up, more liquid keeps appearing, almost as if somehow the tiny native responsible has bewitched it to constantly renew itself. Even worse, Messy and Chunkacabra see this as a game, insisting on splashing about instead of helping–or at least staying out of the way. I cannot decide whether to continue fighting the current or flee to higher ground. Either way, I am trapped.

This may be the end of the island.

What I am about to relate occurred, in actuality, several days ago. I have only just recovered enough to speak of the event that will forever be known on this island as “The Egg-Drop Incident.”

I had taken terribly ill. So weakened was I that I could not even muster the strength to prepare food for myself. Hunger overtook me, until finally, I sent out a distress call. My mother, a fine Captain herself, caught my signal. She offered to come to my aid, even traveling out of her way to the neighboring island of Crouching Dragon. There she procured a food with mystical healing properties, known as “Egg-Drop Soup.” She also generously arrived bearing other delicacies: Bourbon Chicken, Lo Mein, Spring Rolls. I was delirious with hunger, and also with happiness. I opened the container of soup, along with everything else, but alas, I needed a spoon.

As I began to go to fetch our silverware, the Loch Mess Monster stood in his chair. He dropped trou. I asked him if he needed to use the restroom, which he answered with a resounding roar of a “NO!” I was too hungry to question–too out of my mind with fatigue to consider the repercussions of my actions. I believed him. I left him, half-clothed, at the table. I washed a spoon… But never had the chance to use it.

I returned to find my egg roll soggy. Nay, not soggy–floating. Messy had lied, his bladder even smaller than his sense of shame. In his frenzy, he had left me with nothing. The open container of soup? It had been yellow to begin with. I could not discern if it had been contaminated. Perhaps a braver man would have taken the chance, but I was unwilling to risk it. The Lo Mein; the Bourbon Chicken… Every last bit of desperately-needed food that had been brought had been urinated upon, rendered hopelessly inedible. I went hungry that day.

I would like to say that I have fully recovered from this tragedy–that I can look at a bowl of soup without a profound sadness–but I do not know if I ever will.

In my last log, I wrote that I had freedom–peace, even. I did not know it was only the calm before the storm…

I have hardly slept these last two nights, a victim to the phenomenon known as “daylight savings time.” 2300 hours feels like 2200; 0200 like 0100. It is difficult enough for me to discipline myself to turn in for the evening, the hours being upset as they are, but the effect on the tiny natives has been devastating. They are not tired when they should be tired, and in fact, appear not to exhaust themselves at all. I cannot say why this “daylight savings time” has robbed them of their innate need for rest, only that it has, and they seem to delight in it. My Co-Captain is largely unbothered, as for whatever reason, the tiny natives do not seek his attention in the deepest hours of the night. Their only interest is in disrupting me. This further confirms my hypothesis that my Co-Captain is, in fact, their preferred human, and that they may be weakening me in order to attempt a mutiny.

Send reinforcements.

I am convinced that we have somehow leapt into an alternate reality. This foreign place is, in appearance, the island. Every surface is sticky, as on the island. Even the familiar island smell lingers here–stale, tinged with raspberry jelly and the faint aura of urine (Messy’s doing; he has yet to master his toilet habits). Despite appearances, however, something is not right. It is too quiet–eerily so. All three of the tiny natives have fallen into sleep at the same time, and because of this, I know we are not where we belong. There is too much freedom. Too much peace. This is not my world.

I will do everything in my power to find a way home for us… Perhaps next week.