Here’s To Every Mom Totally Annoyed By All The Little Piles Everywhere In Her Home
For starters: why does no one else seem to see them?
Every weekend for the past five-ish years, I’ve had this ritual that I absolutely hate. I go through every common area of my house — living room, office, kitchen, dining room, bathrooms, sunporch — and I pick up all the random small piles of stuff.
My son’s Nerf darts (so many Nerf darts), my daughter’s numerous craft projects, my library book that needs to be returned, and my husband’s random tool that was on the arm of the couch for some reason. Every item is then placed on the dining room table at the seat of their respective owners. By dinnertime, everyone has to get that pile put away... in theory. Very often the pile is simply moved from the table to the kitchen counter where it languishes for another day or so before spreading into a couple of new piles.
Why, why are these things so hard to deal with?
Media personality Bekah Martinez recently shared a video on Instagram that perfectly encapsulated why we just can’t seem to deal with these tiny mountains of doom. No, we’re not crazy: they are “the single hardest thing” about being a mom.
“There’s these little piles that accumulate. Mini piles. And I’m the only one who acknowledges these piles,” she begins. “These piles require so much mental energy all the time. Because there’s so many little decisions attached to every little item.”
Her example pile includes a light bulb, a pacifier clip, a Shrinky Dink parrot, and an unidentified doo-hickey (maybe a piece to a tripod). To the uninitiated, this is annoying but not difficult: just put the things where they belong, obviously. But where do they belong? That light bulb, for instance, isn’t just a light bulb.
“This is a rechargeable light bulb,” Martinez explains. “I should put it with the light bulbs, but I think it has a charger and I don’t know where that charger is.”
There are similar issues with all the other items as well. Like, what do you do with a pacifier clip when your child no longer uses pacifiers? Do you toss it? Do you donate it? But where would you even donate something like that where people would know what it is? The Shrinky Dink? A gift from her daughter’s friend. What do you do with the guilt you feel after you throw something like that away? And what the hell does this maybe-a-tripod-part go?
“Do I just throw this whole pile away?” she muses. “No! This is a perfectly good marker! This is a perfectly good light bulb. I can’t throw these things away.”
She doesn’t say this, but I will emphasize the fact that this is just one of many such piles.
Unfortunately, if you are the Pile Manager in your house, you’re probably the only pile manager in your house. Everyone else just... doesn’t notice them and doesn’t know what to do with them and makes you feel crazy if you complain about them.
Martinez laments that she was trying to commiserate about the piles of doom with her partner... and it didn’t go super well.
“He was sitting there at 11 p.m. eating this stupid bowl of granola — granola I hand-made — ... and I just started wanting to put my head through a wall because no one else in this family at this point in our lives is going to do anything with these effin’ little piles! And no one else that lives here is going to make homemade granola ... that other people are going to sit on their ass and eat at 11 p.m. instead of walking around the house working on the little piles!”
We do not have the answer here, but we are right with you in seeing not only the piles but the problem. If you come up with a solution, please let us know.
