E.M.O. Ch 4: The Unkempt

Once again, light crept through Em's window and played across her face like a child on a playground. She stirred and woke, then stretched and got out of bed to complete the morning ritual of face-washing and teeth-brushing. She hadn't had her usual nightmare last night. She usually didn't on Saturday nights, because those were her happy days. She didn't really have anything special to do, since she'd done virtually everything the day before. Sundays were her dull days.

While she was eating her cereal and watching cartoons in her room, the doorbell rang. She jumped, sending Fruity Pebbles and pink milk flying into the air. Luckily, her videogame playing had honed her reflexes enough for her to react in time to just barely dodge it and let it land on the floor, instead of her lap. The sound of the doorbell had caught her off guard. Everyone knew her mom was at work, and no one ever came over just to visit Em. Plus, it was still morning. "Who would find it normal to visit someone's house at this time of day?" was the question in her mind once she'd recovered from the combined surprise of the mystery doorbell and the airborne breakfast.

She grabbed a brush from her dresser and went to the front door, brushing her hair along the way. She didn't bother changing her clothes, since the visitor shouldn't have been surprised by her still being in her pajamas at such an early hour as this. In fact, Em wouldn't have been surprised if the visitor was still in pajamas his or herself at this time on a Sunday.

When she opened the door, she stared, wide-eyed, slightly surprised, at Max, wearing a similar wide-eyed expression, except his wide-eyedness was less like one of surprise and more like that of a deer caught in someone's headlights. He shook it off after a few seconds, noticing the silence.

"Uh, sorry, did I disturb breakfast?" he asked, clearly stifling a laugh.

Em tilted her head to the side, confused as to what was so funny, and how he knew she'd been eating breakfast. After a few seconds, she looked down and realized she'd left her cereal spoon in her mouth and pulled it out, hiding it behind her back and blushing a little.

"Um, anyway," Max continued, still laughing a little, "you never told me when you'd be free to work on the project, so I figured I'd come over and check."

"Um," Em tried to answer, still not comfortable talking to other people directly like this, "I'm usually free on any day but Saturday…"

"Oh, cool. So you're free today?" Max replied, sort of cutting Em off a little.

"Huh?" Em jumped, surprised and a bit caught off guard. "Well, yeah, I guess, but…"

"Awesome," Max said, cutting Em off again. "I'll come back in a few hours so we can work on it."

"Wait, what?" Em trailed off, under her breath, as Max ran off to wherever he was going.

Em stood there in her doorway, dumbfounded, wondering what had just happened. If she was understanding correctly, a random boy she had just met days ago and knew nothing about had just come to her house, uninvited and without warning, at about 9 am on a Sunday morning, seen her in her pajamas with a spoon hanging from her mouth, and made his own plans about coming back to her house later, all without her consent.

She wasn't sure what to do. She wasn't used to people even acknowledging her, let alone coming over to her house. She went back to her room to replace her spilled cereal and finish eating; Max had guessed correctly about disturbing her breakfast. Once her cartoons had ended, she decided she should start getting ready. She picked out her usual attire and finished doing her hair, not really seeing any reason to go out of her way for the occasion.

Once she had made herself as decent as she saw necessary, she decided to clean the up some to make the house decent too. She stopped at the doorway of the living room, letting out a small sigh of exasperation once she'd taken it all in.

Em was a neat, organized person. Her room was almost always tidy and clean. The only times it became messy were when she was either looking for something, at which point things ended up scattered all over her room, or when she was drawing or writing, at which point her floor became flooded with paper. "rough drafts" which she tended to ball up and toss behind her, once she realized she was unsatisfied with them. But other than those times, her room was clean and well-kept.

She had inherited her neatness from her dad. at least that's what her mom said. He had always been really tidy, ever since they'd met in high school, and, on top of that, he had spent time in the Marines, which only furthered his neatness. In the same way, Em had been naturally neat and clean ever since she was a baby, and being her dad's daughter had only furthered that neatness. Even as a baby, she kept her toys organized and separated by color. And her neatness had furthered even more after he father had passed away. It was a sort of subconscious tribute and memorial to him.

Her mom, however, was a different story. Wherever she want, organization was unlikely to follow. Her bed was always made haphazardly, if made at all, and the sink always piled up with dishes until Em came into the kitchen. Even Em's habits of putting things in places she couldn't remember, tossing things everywhere when she was looking for something, and throwing unsatisfactory work to the floor were all inherited from her mom.

Em hadn't been in the living room since Thursday. Her mom, however, had, and both facts were very obvious. If a tornado had blown through, followed by an earthquake, then a large-scale stampede, the room might look half as bad, but only if the tornado was strong enough and the animals in the stampede were pretty big. Em sighed again at the task at hand. Balls and sheets of paper covered the floor, while cups and bowls sat unwashed on tables, their contents spilled on the tables and floor. Em had long ago cut away the carpet around the tables to make it easier to clean up her mother's spills, but her mom still spilled on before she even made it to the table.

Clumsiness and forgetfulness were another few traits that enhanced Em's mother's messiness. Em had actually inherited both traits, but they only showed when she was nervous. The dishes left around the house hadn't been left deliberately. They had been forgotten, even though Em's mom had to have walked past them multiple times. The spills near the table had come from her knocking things over, and those away from the table had come from her tripping while walking.

Em looked around and noticed a curtain that had been torn and had a purple stain on it. She already knew the stain was, once again, from her mom tripping, and apparently she'd grabbed the curtain to try and save herself. The stain, Em assumed was a mix of pomegranate, blueberry, and apple juice, with some Sprite mixed in too; her mom's favorite self invented drink. Any purple spots around the house were assumed to be this.

Em's mom had actually created the drink with her own clumsiness in mind. In her theory, the Sprite helped give the drink some cleaning properties, so that it cleaned itself a little when it was spilled. Em often tried to point out the fact that that didn't prevent the other ingredients from doing anything, but it never got through to her mom's pride in her creation. The Sprite also gave the drink a bit of a fizz and tingle, which helped make it more like something alcoholic, since she had forbidden herself from having actual alcohol long ago. She was already clumsy, why make it worse? This, Em had much less argument to.

After a bit more surveying, Em finally got down to cleaning the living room. Dusting, vacuuming, mopping, putting up a different set of curtains, folding clothes, washing dishes, sweeping up pieces of a vase her mom had probably unwittingly knocked over by slamming the door behind her; she got it all done. Cleaning had become sort of a second nature to her. She didn't mind doing it. Sure, cleaning up after her mother and little brother was more like being a mom of two kids than it was like being one of a mom's two kids, but she still didn't mind. Her mom's messiness was just a part of who she was, and Em wouldn't change it for the world.