When Cleaning Goes Wrong

And this . . . is where I dropped my soup!

He came at me before I was even aware he was in the room.  Fists clenched and down to his sides, as if he was a gunslinger about to go to work.  His brows were furrowed down over his narrowed eyes.  He breathed, like a bull, through clenched teeth.

His first words streamed out in a vicious path so fast that I couldn’t make sense of them.

“What’s that, buddy?”

“YOU THINK MY ART IS TRASH!?”  My five-year-old made it an accusation, not a question.

Ooops!

Looks like daddy’s cleaning of the house had some unwanted repercussions.

I have an artist in my house.  He’s always making “art”.  Mostly, it looks like a mess to me.  Bits of paper cut up and held together using too much Scotch tape.  This isn’t the first time I’ve stumbled onto the “artistic” world.

“Hey man, what’s all this construction paper doing under your bed?”

“Dad!” the frustrated five-year-old cried out, as if raging against the angst of an unfair social machine.  “I’m an ARTIST.”

The kicker was his next line.

“Mom understands!”

There we have it.  Another artist in the house.  Competition is just what I need.