It's the journey...

If there is one thing I miss about not having kids, (besides being able to fat around on the couch after a night of intense drinking and shenanigans), it's the ability to leave the house.

It doesn't matter where we are going or what we are doing, when it's time to leave the house, it takes for-fucking-ever.

I'm not a timely person anyway.  In fact, I'm always late as it is.  So, you can imagine what it's like now when I'm dealing with the herding of the most brainless cats on the planet.  It's more like drunk brainless cats.  It's more like drunk brainless cats with no legs.  Yes, I think that's it.

You ALL know what I'm talking about.

There are things that will inevitably happen when you are trying to leave.  It doesn't matter if it's a place of their choosing or yours.  This shit will happen...true story.

You will lose one.
There is no doubt, if you have more than one child you are trying to wrangle into the car, you will lose one.  And, most of the time it's not the one you want to lose.  You'll be forced to go back into the house and look for the lost child.  You will finally find said child, you will get back to the car, buckle that child in and realize you are now missing another child.  It's like whack-a-mole for assholes.

There will be an occurrence of IBS.
It doesn't matter if your child shits like clockwork, the second he/she gets into the carseat, he/she will be prairie-dogging it, and will need unbuckled to run back in to take care of it.  That child will go in for three seconds and come back out only to tell you that he didn't really have to go, but he thought he did.  So...the next time, you won't let him go, and it will bite you in the ass.  Well, technically his ass.

There will be at least one lost shoe.
Seriously.  Do the shoes go hang out with my socks and earrings?  Because no matter what happens, there is always one missing.  Like, how the fuck does that happen?  Did my child walk around with one shoe on for a while?  Where could this thing be, and how did I not notice Shoeless Joe Jackson hobbling around?  How long did he hobble around?  Did someone break in and steal it?  If so, couldn't they have taken the child and left the shoe?

You will have to check the straightener/curling iron/iron.
While this isn't directly your child's fault.  It kinda is.  Because before those children, you were sharp as a fucking tack, and now your braincells are hovering in the single digits, and what is left has been sopped up by vodka.  Those brain-sucking drunk cats you are herding are clearly responsible for your extra trip up the stairs.  

There will be a fight over something stupid.
There just will.  Like who gets the seat by the window.  It's a fucking car.  There are windows everywhere.  Or who will get buckled in first.  Or who gets which bag of goldfish crackers.  Even if you made bags for each of the kids, one of them will have more, or their bag will be bigger, or they will have a broken goldfish.  Those little orange bastards make it almost impossible for children to get along.

And, inevitably, you will have forgotten whatever you were supposed to bring.

I wish that the above list was an exaggeration of real events...however, unfortunately I think I'm probably forgetting some things.  Perhaps they've been blocked from my memory on purpose as God's mercy for raising these two-legged creatures.

By the time I get in my car, I am so incredibly exhausted.  And I know I will show up somewhere and someone, possibly someone without kids or someone who forgot what it's like to have them, will ask me what took me so long or why I look so worn out.  I want to videotape the 30 minutes prior to leaving and force them to sit through it (with unequal bags of broken goldfish) so they can truly understand that it's not about the destination, but rather the long, fucked up journey I had to take to get to said destination.  And then they will celebrate me.  And give me a crown.  Or at least a beer.

Going anywhere is a chore.  

It's no wonder I have become such a homebody.

So, the next time you hear someone say they just love being home with their family.  Or you see the Facebook post reading, "Home Sweet Home", and you think how lucky that family is to have their shit in a pile.  Just think.   That amazing picture perfect family was probably scared to leave the one-shoed child they lost in the bathroom.