How To Get Organized

Last night I had to kick some ass.

There was mutiny afoot in our art supply cupboard. The f***ing pencils were A.W.O.L. and when they came back it was with broken nibs and worn down erasers.

The markers were dry-air junkies, losing their caps in backwater drawers, their life-blood carelessly spent.

The white computer sheets had wantonly lost their virginity to a bunch of ball-point pens that inked all over them prematurely.

And speaking of ball-point pens, they’d bred out of control. Each pen had at least fifty baby pens to keep in line. There were enough pens for ten Guatemalan villages. It was motherf***ing chaos!

Needless to say, I had to take action. My life is nothing if not a daring adventure. And I knew how to organize my attack.

First, I had to sharpen those shiftless pencils.

I began with a plastic, handheld Curious George pencil sharpener, but it broke the led out of the first five pencils. Obviously I had to bring in the big guns.

I crossed the DMZ (Demilitarized Mommy Zone) into enemy territory — Clare’s bedroom, where she slept lightly just waiting to jump me and make me read her another book.

I attempted to purloin her highly-prized Xacto automatic sharpener. Fortunately, my time in mommy boot camp prepared me for night-ops.

I moved with the stealth of a Stella-And-Dot trunk show hostess.

The Xacto sharpener brought those little pencil bitches into line. Some were incapable of rehabilitation and had to be 86ed. The same went for paper, markers, coloring books, rulers, paint brushes, glue sticks, pipe cleaners, paint sponges and G-D and Fairy Princess stickers that weren’t up to snuff.

Don’t you be eyeballing me you kid scissors. Drop and give me twenty snips!

This is what an art cupboard should look like. Hospital corners, bitches. Hospital corners!

How to get organized: Your version?