an ode to capless markers....

Have any of you seen this commercial? It is for throw away Glad storage containers. The mom is a nazi requiring stiff collateral before ever giving out a storage container of leftovers. Until VOILA Glad (or whatever brand it was) saves the day with their disposable storage containers?

I feel like that mom....why is it that my children seem to take markers as a challenge to lose the caps? And why is it that it seems to only take 1.3 seconds before a market without a cap dries up? And why is it that when the caps are left off of all these markers and one starts to clean up looking for the matches, one can find MANY caps and MANY markers but none of them match?!?!? Should I start requiring them to leave collateral or super glue the things to their tiny little hands? What? What? What? can I do to save my markers AND their caps?

Yesterday was drive-in movie night at AWANA. As part of this special night, the children were supposed to bring a box or basket to be their "car." They were supposed to decorate said box or basket to look like a car. Now in spite of my conviction that all crafts and crafting supplies come straight from Satan, I decided to cave and get on the bandwagon for this project. I (in an uncharacteristically prepared fashion) remembered that boxes were needed, and thought this was a great time to finally purchase grocery boxes. (I had been wanting to use them to sort hand-me-downs that don't yet fit and toys and such because they are uniformly shaped and UBBER cheap....as Kastner children destroy EVERYTHING they touch I figured I wouldn't cry too many tears when they destroyed my $0.99 organizers). Soooooo on Saturday when I was at the grocery store, I REMEMBERED to ask the cashier for boxes. This item had been on my grocery list for at least 3 weeks and I just never remembered to ask by the time I got to the register. I was SO proud of myself as I watched Ally pick up the phone and call back to request my boxes. (No I don't know ALL of the cashier's by name....this one is one of my babysitters.) Soooo she gets off the phone and informs me... "we don't have any boxes." Typical, I finally remember to ask. I act in a prepared way, requesting the boxes a full five days before they are required and.... they are out! Whatever.

So yesterday [because my momma didn't raise no dummy], I called up to Pick N Save and asked them to please check if they had boxes. After being put on hold, being transferred to the grocery department, being put on hold again, I was finally told "YES we have boxes." Later in the afternoon I went to Pick N Save, proceeded immediately to the Service Counter and asked for 4 boxes please. The poor little high school guy manning the counter had just finished dealing with an older lady who was IRATE that her $1 off Advil coupon had not been figured into her total. Now he had to deal with me. He hung up the phone from calling back to request my boxes and said, "We don't have any boxes." I promise I counted to 10 first (ok maybe only 3), and I said, "I called up here this morning because I did not want to make a trip up here with four kids in tow for nothing. I was told you had boxes. Please ask again." Well.....somehow this time when he called, they had boxes but they were on the truck and it would be a 10 minute wait. FINE. I headed towards the bakery to get the kids their free cookie. As we returned to the Service Counter, Jeremiah said, "Mom, that wasn't 10 minutes." I know Miah now we get to wait....and wait...and wait.

My children actually waited in a manner that I was JUST fine with. They were pulling each other's hair. At least two of them screamed at the TOP of their lungs. Three tried to activate the nearby fire extinguisher. It was true Kastner Chaos. And guess what? For once, I really didn't care. Let the other patrons and the staff put up with us....they TOLD me they had boxes. I dragged my four children out of their shut-in, homeschooled life and into the grocery store and now they were making me wait (waaaaaaay longer than 10 minutes). They could put up with the Kastner's in their glory. Finally the "manager" who couldn't have been much more than 16 (I would have said 12 but I don't think they give work permits to 12 year olds) came up apologetically with my boxes. I don't think he was really sorry, but I think he realized at the last moment that I was Tracey's cheer coach... so he treated me nicely.

Anywhoo.... VERY long rabbit trail off track there... back to my ode to lost markers. So we return home FINALLY with our boxes and I pull out the coveted art supplies, knowing full well that I am going to regret this. I started with, "Absolutely, positively, no paint."

"But mom-"
"No paint."
"Mom-"
"Nope."
"Plea-"
"NADA! Not gonna happen ABSOLUTELY NOT!"

Well that was the beginning of the end for every single marker in the Kastner household. All day long I have been finding caps and markers [but none together]. You know if you step on a marker cap barefoot and it hits you smack in the middle of that soft arch of your foot... it's almost enough to make a Christian cuss. I actually have one green dry erase marker and one yellow dry erase marker with caps(which actually brings up another rabbit trail....what in the WORLD is the purpose of a yellow dry erase marker? it doesn't show up very well and so if the purpose of dry erase markers is to write say on a white board so others can see it from far away how in the WORLD could anyone find any use for a YELLOW one?!?!?!) . I have (I am pretty sure) lost all of my washable markers (and probably all of my sanity too). I currently have four caps and three markers on my desk but NOT ONE OF THEM MATCH!

So this is an ode to capless markers....I can blame no one but my own self. I knew that crafts and art projects were from the devil yet still I let my children decorate their fake car boxes. Whatever, I need to just get over it and go put markers on my Wal-Mart list I guess.