It all started with an innocent pitcher of lemonade. Well, that and a darling little boy who thought he was old enough to tackle the task.
After all, he’d seen pitchers of lemonade, observed the process in the making, and certainly any kid worth his salt could lift a spoon, swirl the contents and make a fine brew – all by himself.
Now, you show me someone who doesn’t think that a little boy making a pitcher of lemonade all by himself is cute, and I’ll show you someone who has never seen a paper towel commercial.
As any kid will tell you, no matter how much sugar the powdered-lemonade people put into the mix, it isn’t enough. Therefore, I’m sure that Charlie couldn’t help but think, Why on earth not add a little more? So Little Charlie did just that. Then he took a sampling, determined that it still wasn’t quite sweet enough, and added another healthy scoop of sugar.
It wasn’t until the little guy lifted the heavy pitcher, missed his glass entirely and proceeded to dump the entire vat that Little Charlie knew how big of a mess that a gallon of over-sweetened lemonade could make.
Standing in a lake of syrupy goop, Little Charlie’s mind surely raced. As he looked down at the yellow pond, he certainly must have thought to himself, Wow! That’s a lot of lemonade! He had to know that I, his mother, was busy in the other room, but that it wouldn’t be long before the old gal came by.
Thank heavens for thirsty paper towels, and if the commercials rang true, Charlie could have this mess cleaned up in a jiff and his Mom would be none the wiser.
One paper towel didn’t do the trick as Charlie had hoped. No sir, not even two squares as the commercials had boasted. After using an entire roll of paper towels and throwing in his socks for good measure, Charlie left the kitchen in search of as many bath towels as he could haul. He brought them back, threw them into the lemony mix, and proceeded to mop the mess. Giving the floor one final sticky swirl, he admired his work, gave up on the idea of lemonade, and went off to watch a little TV.
Lucky for Little Charlie, I’d made a vow to myself early last week to try harder to be calmer, to make better attempts to let the little things go and not let life’s little mishaps mess with my mojo.
So when I sauntered across the kitchen floor and lost my left flip-flop in what appeared to be a mixture of yellow sugar and contact cement, I didn’t blow a gasket. I knew what had taken place, what had caused it and what I was in for, and decided to just tackle the mess while keeping things in perspective. After all, what was another hour of cleaning?
What I didn’t understand was how in the world one small pitcher of lemonade could have covered the entire countertop and kitchen floor and filled two drawers before it made its way around the corner to the stove, traveled east toward the refrigerator and was later reported to have been seen as far west as Wahoo, Nebraska.
I have dealt with messes in my day. I’ve handled ketchup-coated vestibules, and wrestled Jell-O boxes free of chocolate syrup. I have opened the kitchen cupboard to find that the chocolate chips had been partying with the miniature marshmallows and had ripped open the corn chips in an attempt to get them to join them.
I thought that nothing could rival the great Karo syrup disaster of 2006, and indeed the microwave/chili explosion of 2007 had come close. But nothing had ever coated an area and covered it so thoroughly as Little Charlie’s lemonade recipe.
With Little Charlie at my side, I got out the buckets of hot water. I grabbed towels, mops and wringers. Armed with resilience and patience that I didn’t really feel, I held off chewing Little Charlie out and instead helped him to see the work involved in cleaning up a bucketload of overly sweetened lemonade.
Just like a mother in a Prozac commercial, I worked alongside Charlie in a manner that would have put Carol Brady to shame. We cleaned the mess, and in the meantime, Little Charlie learned a life lesson in lemonade, patience, and old-fashioned teamwork.
I was proud of myself right up until the moment that I rounded the corner to see that my handsome young Lawrence had just prepared himself a king-size pitcher of lemonade and was preparing to pour it into a small glass.
Poor kid, he never knew what hit him.
Lori Clinch is the mother of four sons and the author of the book “Are We There Yet?” You can reach her at www.loriclinch. com.