You never know what kind of strange stuff you'll find underneath a set of stairs. But mixed in with miscellaneous, dusty, unidentifiable objects, I just came across my husband's jeans.
We were remodeling and as my brother looked down into the newly exposed room under the stairs he said, "Remember the time that Ron lost all his pants?"It was easy to remember. He had put all his jeans except the ones he was wearing into the washing machine one day, and then never saw them again. When he questioned each of us individually, we all denied any knowledge of their whereabouts.
Frustrated and tired of wearing the same pants over and over, he went from room to room and conducted an inch-by-inch search for the most needed part of his wardrobe. He finally found some jeans in a trunk in our boys' room. "What are they doing in there?" he asked.
"Oh, those," my son said bashfully. "I forgot they were in there."
It turned out that in his haste to fold and put away clothes, our son tossed the pants in there and then ran out to play, intending to put them in their rightful place later.
But Todd had news. "I think I just found a pair."
Sure enough, there they were, tossed in a darkened corner awaiting the light of day. My husband was flabbergasted and kept shaking his head in disbelief. "Think hard," he said to our son. "Do you know where any more are?"
He scrunched his face in concentration and then took off running. We all followed, anxious to see where he went. Gingerly, he pulled out a balled-up pair from behind the dryer.
Wouldn't it have been a lot easier just to run upstairs and put the pants on our bed? It must have taken a lot of effort to come up with those hiding places. I know. I put as much effort into hiding food. I have to. My two oldest boys have turned into full-fledged teenagers, and anything that's not tacked down, they inhale.
I don't even dare shop for more than a day at a time, because no matter how much food I bring home in a day, they eat it. And I don't just mean junk food.
I went to make Spanish rice for dinner today, and one of them had eaten the green peppers. Even the jalapeno peppers in the jar were half gone. My husband put a hamburger in a pan, left the room momentarily, and when he came back the pan was still sizzling, but the meat was gone.
"I can't believe they ate that," he said.
"It's your fault," I said. "You should have guarded it."
My kids are wise to me now. They know to check in the oatmeal box, behind the microwave, in the empty Pero jar. Nothing goes unchecked.
Joshua shouldn't have hidden the jeans, but it's hard to get mad at him. He put a lot of thought into his hiding places, and I realized he learned it all from me.
(Patt Jensen lives in Provo with her husband, Ron, and three children, ages 1 to 15. She writes about kids, kin and family every other Tuesday for the Deseret News.)