It's the End of the World and I'm in My Bathing Suit: List 2

Not so in the Holloway family home—no, in our house, washing and drying clothes is easily the most overly complicated, stupidly complex process ever in a house that has a ton of overly complicated, stupidly complex processes.
And who’s to blame for this laborious laundry doing?

Even my dirty clothes hamper is buried in dirty clothes.

I’ve officially collected as many T-shirts, pants, shorts, underwear, and socks as I can hold against my chest—because the more I carry on each trip down to the basement, the less trips I have to make, right?
Except maybe I was a little too ambitious because this pile is so high I can’t quite see over it as I blindly stumble out into the hallway, doing my best to keep my balance—

“Whoa, did your hamper projectile vomit all over the hallway or are you creating abstract art, bud?”

I swing the bulky laundry bag back over my shoulder, and as I step into the kitchen I imagine I’m the Reverse Santa Claus, about to board my stinky, in desperate need of a good shower reindeer posse...

Anyway, before you try to judge me I want you to honestly imagine what you’d do if your washer and dryer were all the way down in your cavernous basement-dungeon.

Oh, nothing much—just my patented, super-special, never-fail countermove to Mom’s possible soul-snatching attack.

SURPCERN is THEE single most important expression that you absolutely, unequivocally MUST MASTER should you wish to not only survive your tween years, but dare I say, emerge victorious from those same years.

No question, surpcern is the premier facial expression for all kid-parent occasions.

She’s massaging the top corners of her face now, trying to ward off that headache, which appears to be coming in red hot.

And okay, honestly, guys, this whole insistence on the basement floor being somehow clean is baffling.

I am the Protector of Pudding (and All Other Transported Perishable and Extremely Spillable Goods). It’s a responsibility I don’t take lightly, whether it’s peach cobbler, or a pan of lasagna, or a ginormous bowl of sloshing soup—which, let me tell you, is no picnic!

And no, the attack’s not even orchestrated by The Bronster—or as he’s more commonly known as: The Officially Recognized Worst Human Being Ever to Breathe on This Planet and Likely Any Other Planet with Yet-to-Be-Discovered Alien Life Forms.

The Universe Itself: Can we agree that you’re kinda exaggerating about my snoring levels?
The Universe (shaking its head adamantly): Umm, do you wanna listen to the recording from last week again?

I’m strutting to our mailbox crazy frustrated that I’m spending my day in a basement instead of the beach.

That’s when I notice that the real culprit of the earlier mentioned assault is not the giant dog that took my legs out.

But if The Bronster finds me even lurking in close proximity to his bedroom door it’s gonna be World War III.

I’d love to ask them how they engineered a dryer sheet to smell like “clean laundry”? So, you’re telling me the dryer sheet will not only remove the static electricity from my clean laundry, but it will also make my clean laundry smell like...like...clean laundry?

...I was the Holder of the Flashlight, or more accurately, the Holder of the Phone with Its Flashlight App Turned On—and, yeah, okay, occasionally I got a little distracted, prompting Real Dad to say, “Eddie, sorry to bother you and your shadow puppetry, but would you mind aiming some of that light at the power box so I can, you know, see what I’m doing and not get electrocuted?”—but that was the exception, not the standard!

I mean, black dark.
Like when your mom's told you to turn off Dragon Insurgents seven times already and you keep promising her you're almost done, you just need to clear this last checkpoint so you can save your progress except she runs out of patience, casually strolls into your room, and turns off your TV with zero hesitation dark.

A full-fledged, entire-neighborhood power outage (at least from what I can tell via my quick peek outside).

You know the people I’m talking about—they’re calling after you in one of those semi-truck-looking microphones that’s pinned to their polo shirt, just as you walk by their booth, offering you a chance to play a really easy and stupendously fun game called You Stand There and Let Me Stare at You for a Period of Time Just Shy of Super Awkward, at Which Time I Will Wow You and the Gathering Crowd as I Deduce Any of the Following of Your Choosing: Your Age, Your Name, or Your Birthday Month.

I don’t know about you but I instantly had this very visceral reaction.

Like I’m both extremely intrigued and supremely nervous about how that sentence ends—which just goes to show, like, the power of language as a tool of self-expression, you know what I mean?

“Uh-oh, here we go.”
I scoff. “Here we go what?”

You really think I’d campaign for my hardworking mom to spend her hard-earned funds on some overpriced, watery lotion just because Ava Bustamante says it smells so good that if Gregory Loganham—one of the weirdest kids in our school, a kid who tucks his T-shirts into his jeans, keeps a pet mouse named Klaus in his front pocket, and never cleans his retainer—started wearing it, she’d probably have to go out with him?

Except the pile’s too massive and too precarious—aka it could topple over on me any minute.

Eddie left this world under the weight of his own soiled laundry, his last few breaths were of his own sweat-tinged, tear- inducing stink.

Eddie is survived by his favorite (dirty) jeans, his vintage Mighty Moat (best band ever) (also dirty) T-shirts, and his family.

You’d think such a putrid smell would’ve been nauseating me weeks ago when the only barrier between it and me was a cheap, faux (fancy for fake!) wood closet door.

Because it turns out that my amazing, perfectly crafted, once-in-a-lifetime plan has now backfired on me twice. First, Mom banning me from Beach Bash because of the laundry. And now every single article of clothing I own is either filthy, wet, or locked in a washing machine with no power.

I hear footsteps and my heart speeds up—a few drops of sweat glide down my cheek. Between the sun and my own internal heat ramping up, another few minutes of this and I’ll be officially saturated.

I point to the two bars jutting from the rear wheel.

And we both answer with simultaneous shrugs, which is pretty much our go-to move.

“But here’s the real question, here we are, the five of us alone and unsupervised, with literally our entire neighborhood at our disposal—so then what should we do with our new freedom, my friends?”