My son's room is a bio-hazard

Fellow Queens,

When it comes to keeping a dear Prince’s room clean, I always advise that you just close their door. Done! You can even invite guests to your castle if they are not the nosy type that will open doors and medicine cabinets. (a tip -always hide the Valium)

But there does come a point when a Queen must intervene.

My biggest offender is my oldest Prince. Left to his own devices he will continue his pack rat ways until there is a maze of stacked Rolling Stone magazine leading to his bed. Oh wait, there already is.

When he goes off to college I envision renting dumpsters to haul away all his beloved collectables. Spiral notebooks, old art projects, the bug collection assignment from 5th grade, all priceless treasures, now line the floor of his room. Electronics, a dusty briefcase with a long forgotton combination number and 15 decks of playing cards lay about. Who needs 15 decks of cards? This isn’t Vegas.

After being given sufficient warning about the upcoming room clean we began. I armed myself with a roll of garbage bags, stood in his doorway and asked, “Right or left?” “Uh…left?” he guessed. “Good. Off we go.” I then instructed him to sit on the floor with me on the left side of the door, sort through piles, dump stuff and crab walk around the room.

I would pick something up and ask, “If the flood waters were rising, you had three minutes to get to the attic, would you take this?” I got a lot of ‘no’s and the recyle bin got full. My favorite discovery was a cubby full of assorted metal. When I asked him what that invaluable collection was all about he said, “Oh, one day Matthew and I just went around and picked up every piece of metal we found.” Included was the entire big silver button thing you push to cross major intersections. I’m just not asking about that one.

Today the room, tomorrow the closet; which is fine with me. Now I can wear all the cool clothes he’s outgrown.

Reign On!

Queen Linda