Moms, Protect Yourselves. MSHB is a Serious Condition...

Like many single moms with three boys - or with any children for that matter - Garbage Day is one day in the week that we can count on a little help from our kids.

And that's actually true with me.

So on garbage day this week Miles and Calvin were splitting up duties...Cal going and grabbing little bags from the upstairs bedrooms and bathrooms and Miles getting the big one in the kitchen and bringing the outside can to the curb.

And while this process was happening, quite a little mystery occurred.

The garbage in the kitchen is the canister kind with an outer stainless steel base and an inner hard plastic liner that can be lifted in or out and is where the garbage bags are attached. The garbage bag was SO full (God forbid someone would take it out BEFORE it was due for garbage day) that Miles had to take the can's entire inner liner part out with him to dump out. The bag itself was too full to be able to be pulled out of the liner.

But as he was out doing this, and as Calvin was right behind him with the other garbage, the puppy got out the front door.

This was our - and by 'our' I mean 'their' - first major thinking breakdown of the night. That darn dog has been a runner since the second Santa graced us with her presence this Christmas. We all know that she can't be anywhere near an open front door or we are going to be spending a good 10 minutes looking like idiots trying to outwit, outlast and outrun a fluffy, five-pound dog.

So Miles set down the garbage can liner on the driveway to take part in the chase. They finally were able to wrangle her - with the help of their own newly-developed tag-team method - and then he and Calvin got the rest of the garbage put out. And then we all went about our evening business.

That was, until about a half-hour later, when I was in the kitchen and went to throw something into the garbage. And the liner wasn't in the can. Its not the type of garbage can where you can plop and tighten a plastic bag into the stainless steel outer base and then just make do. The liner part is the essential piece of the whole set-up in order for the plastic garbage bag to be secured.

Plus, its an expensive garbage can. It was something we bought when we moved into the house. The thought of the whole thing not being functional makes me crazy. I'm getting sweaty just thinking about it.

So as I was getting out a bag, all I could think about was, where the heck is the liner? How am I going to put my garbage bag in it without the liner? Sometimes something as simple as being able to throw a paper towel into the garbage as you are standing at your kitchen counter becomes something else entirely. Something you can count on. A part of the routine process of running your household.

So when it gets thrown off, I get thrown off.

For the time being, I had to just put my garbage...

**Let me interject right here to say - and I kid you not - that as I was writing this I had to take a quick break because there were two girls just now at the door for Miles. He had NO interest in coming out to talk to them - or he did and didn't want to admit it in front of me - so they were just hanging out on the sidewalk being entertained by Isaac and petting the puppy. A fact that is not only important because of the terror it causes me, and because of how it increases the chances of the puppy running again, but also because of how it relates to the part of this story that is coming up**

...into the bag and then I just had to set the whole thing on the floor. Something I soon regretted because of how accessible it was to the dogs. And then I immediately yelled up to Miles to ask where the garbage can liner was.

And this is when it happened...when I saw the first and true example of my whole point here. What my Mom keeps telling me hit my little bro at the same exact age that Miles is right now (sorry, Scott) and what other Mothers keep telling me about their own sons at this age: I've decided to call it Middle School Hormone Brain. MSHB for short.

MSHB is a frightening and serious condition whereby normally very smart, responsible, and capable boys all of the sudden can't find the backpacks that they are wearing on their own backs at the time they are wearing them. Other signs of this terrible disease are when they will know about an important homework assignment and yet leave the book in their locker that they need in order to do it. Or when they will walk in the door after school in 42-degree pouring down rain and have no idea where their coats are.

Or they will take the garbage out and then have no clue where the garbage can liner is afterwards.

Miles displayed symptoms of MSHB when, as I said above, I called him down to ask about the garbage can liner. And then, instead of being worried or concerned about the fact that he was the last person to touch the garbage can liner, he instead showed an often-seen side effect of MSHB which is when humor is applied to the situation where an MSHB outbreak has occurred.

I know this because after I asked him about the garbage can liner his only answer was, "Maybe a hobo stole it and is now using it as a hat."

I should say right here that I actually do know the cause of this disease, even though its hard to treat. MSHB is directly related to how close a boy has gotten in proximity to a girl within a week of showing signs of the disease.

So it was no coincidence that Miles had just gone on his first-ever "date" two days before-hand. With a girl.

I'm not going to say who she is (although she sang a solo at their school talent show a couple of weeks ago of a song by a new, young semi-country singer who had a very good year in 2009, and she shares the same first name as the actress who played Lois Lane in the 'Superman' movies in the late 70's) but I will say that, according to him, she asked him out.

Which is how things are going to go now. They went to the movies by themselves (with, for his first time ever, no parents tagging along...her Mom dropped them off and was waiting when it was over), and he bought her some popcorn. It was a date. Maybe not-so-much to him. But most-certainly to me.

There is one good part, something that cushions the blow for me a little and will always make me love the girl's Mom (even though I just met her): she made them take the girl's ten-year-old brother with them. That part was awesome. But it wasn't enough to prevent the case of MSHB that was about to happen two days later.

And so it went for almost the rest of the week. Him never figuring out what he did with that darn garbage can liner, and me trying to function with just a bag balanced on an outer garbage canister. Which, as I mentioned, I had to move up because of the dogs, and which wasn't that big of a deal until it got really full and nobody emptied it - again - and then it eventually tipped and fell off and landed upside-down (naturally) onto our kitchen floor, spilling garbage everywhere.

The exact moment I was trying to scoop day-old cantaloupe guts off the floor before the dogs ate them was the same exact moment I decided that I'd had had it. And so I yelled out, "I've had it!" And I decided that I truly wasn't going to let MSHB take over my household and therefore be the cause of future garbage stress in my life.

And so I went looking, futilely, for the damn garbage can liner. Digging through the disgusting outside can. Walking through the mud to look around on the side of the house. Searching in the garage. And around the back yard. And on the deck.

No garbage can liner.

And just as I was semi-quietly cursing MSHB and how its messed up my whole garbage system, not to mention my oldest son, I worked my way back into the kitchen - mumbling like Fred Flintstone the entire way - to look at the garbage can base to see if I could somehow get the plastic bag to connect to it in some way so that I could try and live without the liner...

...when I saw it.

The Liner. It was just sitting there inside the base, semi-camouflaged by the fact that a bag hadn't been put back into it after it had been emptied. Evidently it had been there the entire time.

And this is when I discovered another side-effect of MSHB. Apparently its contagious. Highly contagious. Because was it Miles that was so distracted and freaked out by his first-ever date that it kicked-in a serious bout with MSHB which caused him to lose our garbage can liner and then not give a damn about it?

Or was it me, The Mom, who was so subconsciously thrown-off about her son starting his dating life that I was wholly unable to see a fairly large piece of round black plastic as it was sitting inside a canister right in front of my very face for three days?

I think we all know the answer to that.

So, to all the Moms out there with boys in Middle School: consider yourself warned. It won't be enough for you to protect your sons and possibly inoculate them by limiting their time and closeness to girls in order to prevent MSHB.

No. You will also have to protect yourselves. Because I can attest that nothing can be more distracting and disengaging than the idea of my 12-year-old boy sitting in a dark room watching a pulse-raising 3-D movie all while sitting abnormally close to a 12-year-old girl.

And to think, I still have two more to go...

**Update** What are the chances...? The same week I wrote and posted this entry also was the same exact week that Time Magazine printed an article that show scientific evidence to prove my theory. Amazing. Check it out and thanks to Malia for bringing it to my attention:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1973532,00.html?hpt=T2