Want to ensure your kids are all smiles on the first day of school? Have a hot and boring summer. I’ll stop short of calling it a parenting hack because I was equally hot and bored, but I’m digging the positive school vibes.
Margo had plenty of time for fastidious planning and the acquisition of new stuff. She went clothes and supply shopping despite my assertions that our household is already overflowing with said items. She did dry runs on her hair routine and on perfectly packing her new lunchbox. She organized her new backpack days in advance while I silently wondered what to do with last year’s backpack and lunchbox.
Elliott was fine with recycled school supplies, so I happily hauled out a trunk full. For the first day, he grabbed a few sheets of paper and a single pencil and considered himself ready. He’s a junior now and we have a calendar of tasks pinned to our refrigerator to stay on top of college prep and applications. I have a hunch that Kristen and I will be referencing it more than our son and his single pencil.
A few weeks in, the household is regaining that familiar untidiness that outfits the school year. Backpacks and water bottles and shoes are randomly strewn around the family room. Folders, notebooks, laptops, and crumpled-up but perhaps important(?) quizzes and notices decorate the kitchen island. Someday I’ll miss this mess, right?
Bohemian chic, shabby chic, cluttered chic? Just when the term “chic” cannot be applied to my home in any way a call came from TV location scouts. Now that the TV and film industry is so prominent in Georgia, we get this call a couple of times a year like so many other households around here. But we try to never get our hopes too high. Out of maybe twenty times our house has been scouted, it has only been used twice, so it’s equal parts exciting and annoying.
Exciting because who else would pay us just to get lost for 12 hours? Annoying because the effort involved in cleaning the house and hiding all the extra stuff for something that probably won’t happen is enormous. They tell us there is no need to tidy up, but we consistently conclude that they know not of what they speak. The first time our house was used was for Coca Cola/Kroger print ad that featured a family sharing a laugh and a Coke around our kitchen island. It probably could’ve been any kitchen island in any house, anywhere, so paying us was a head-scratcher. But we were happy to oblige.
The second time was a Checkers fast food commercial. The gist was that when you do a good deed, you deserve the Super Loaded Bacon Buford, which is a solid premise. “Diego” is filmed in our driveway loading heavy items onto a moving truck. It aired repeatedly during college basketball games, so I shouted “That’s our house!” every time it aired. They shot a second commercial in our breakfast room that never aired so we also know what it feels like to be snubbed by Hollywood.
This most recent call was for a Disney/McDonald’s commercial though, and some Disney/McDonald’s money sure would help with all the purchases of new stuff. Kristen took the lead, and we cleaned the house until it achieved a contrived aesthetic that conveyed ‘Our children are as tidy as they are scholarly!’ Walt Disney and Ronald McDonald themselves would approve.
The TV People examined various rooms, assessed the lighting and logistics, and were quite complimentary. They loved the house. Only Kristen thinks she overheard them say that for this particular commercial, they needed something a bit more modest, messy even. If only there was a bit more stuff scattered around. We may not be cut out for show business, but we’ll keep auditioning.
