Blamed

This morning, we had a school delay because of frigid temperatures and a dump of snow. That gave the girls plenty of time to complain about what clothes they had to wear to school. Lucky me.

"I hate wearing khakis," said Snow White, "They are terrible."

"Well, wear something else then," I said.

"Well, I don't have anything else. All of my jeans are dirty. And whose fault do you think that is?" she retorted, shooting me a meaningful look.

"Hmmm, could be yours since you didn't sort your clothes into the laundry hampers like you were supposed to. Or maybe it's your fault because you left your jeans you played in the snow in (both pairs) out in the garage instead of putting them on the washing machine like I told you to. But, maybe not, maybe the fact that the clothes that you wear aren't clean for another reason."

"Yeah, Mom, like maybe it's your fault for not doing laundry," she blamed.

"Oh, you mean that laundry?" I asked, pointing to the four baskets of clean laundry in the corner. (Okay, it was clean. At least give me credit for that. She is perfectly capable of digging through clean baskets of laundry for pants instead of them appearing in her drawer like they usually do. Well, sometimes do. Anyway, they were clean, okay?!)

"Well, none of that is mine."

"Hmm, well, I suggest you either put on those khakis or figure out something else. It's 25 below zero out there and I'd hate to have one of your legs freeze off. And, maybe, but only if you want to, you ought to take care of your dirty clothes so that tomorrow you can wear something you like."

"Fine! I'll wear the hideous things, but I hate them!"

Ooooo...I bet I'll be feeling bad about that all day.