Taking Responsibility

There is an issue with responsibility in this Mansion. Only one in four people who live here possesses it. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom, am the gifted party.

My three guys inhabit the same space, yet are totally oblivious to the glaringly obvious. In nature, all systems trend toward disorder. That means that nothing remains static. A house of cards will not stand for eternity. If you build a MiniMansion in the woods down by the creek, and do not paint it or treat it or repair the roof or shore up the sides...eventually that MiniMansion will collapse. And rot. And then there's no more MiniMansion.

You must expend energy to maintain orderliness. My guys don't get it. Or don't care. They will walk around dropped objects. Pretend the mud clod didn't fall off their shoe. Assume that a cup will hop to the kitchen of its own accord. Old food in the refrigerator is edible, or it magically disappears. Foil used on a pan to heat up food should be left on the pan after the last of the food is consumed. It will be gone by morning.

Tuesday evening, I made a meal of leftover turkey. The Pony and I had arrived home late after his Beta Club commitment. Farmer H and the #1 son fended for themselves. In my weariness and cough-medicine-addled state of mind, I left a 22-ounce upside-down bottle of Kraft Real Mayonnaise on the kitchen counter. It was in a public area. The food-staging area, right next to the sink.

Imagine my surprise on Wednesday morning upon being greeted with left-out-all-night mayo. Sure, it was probably all right. I had only purchased it Saturday, opened it to use in deviled eggs, never touched it to food. Nothing would have contaminated it to make it grow salmonella. Would it? I'll never know. Because I tossed it out. You can't be too careful. Nobody else eats it unless it is mixed in. I would only have been poisoning myself.

The thing is...I know Farmer H and #1 had to see it there. Several times. Yet they left it out.

Did you hear about those 48-year-old twins who let their dead mother lie on the floor for oh...I don't know...around about...THREE MONTHS as she decomposed?

That could totally happen here.