There is a saying I have in my house that I repeat, usually before getting ready to go somewhere: “Minimum standards.” It’s the thing I say when I’m freshening up and my husband asks me why I’m getting ready because, “we’re only going to the beach,” or “we’re only going to Home Depot.”
It is a funny phrase for me to say because the “minimum” in that sentence is variable. But nonetheless there are minimum standards I have to meet. For example, if I’m going to the beach, I always add a little blush to my cheeks, there’s always the struggle to smooth my hair into a casual ponytail, and a quick once over with a razor may be needed to make sure I didn’t miss any spots on my legs.
If I’m headed to the bank or on a similar errand, I make sure my clothes aren’t wrinkled and that they are suitable in case business arises in which I need to be taken seriously.
If I’m headed grocery shopping, I make sure I’m wearing going outside clothes and not my jammie bottoms and slippers. You know, minimum standards.
It’s not really that I care what people think, because I don’t, it just seems like the right thing to do to put a little effort into self-care in order to participate in society. For me, as long as I’m making the effort by putting in the minimum standard, I don’t care what opinions people formulate about me.
My kids don’t get this minimum standard thing. When their shoes wear out—as they usually do from skateboarding and generally being boys—they simply grab duct tape and perform a quick repair job. This worked for them for a little while until entire portions of the soles of their shoes started to wear out. Then they began to put cardboard in the bottom of their shoes. That made little difference. Eventually they became creative. They would tape pennies into strategic holes in their shoes so that they could continue wearing them without the holes getting bigger. Then, at some point, they totally gave up and grew accustomed to walking around without the soles of their shoes.
Surprisingly, this was something we didn’t notice. We have to replace their shoes on a monthly basis because of how fast they wear them out, but there were times when the tops of their shoes didn’t wear out as fast as the soles. We only found this out when we noticed how fast they were going through socks. Their socks would be ripped to shreds.
“What in the world did you do to this sock?” I’d ask holding up a shredded piece of dirty cotton. The only reply would be a shrug.
Then, one day as I was putting shoes away, I picked one up and saw that it had no sole. It was just the top façade of a shoe, with nothing underneath. This was what my kids were passing off as shoes. This, on top of the hole-filled pants they already wear and the stained hoodies they wear because, “that’s my favorite hoodie, mom.”
And then one of my sons began to show up with used shoes that his friends gave him. And then my other son began showing up with hand-me-down clothes that no longer fit his friends. It was happening way to often to be a coincidence and we became suspicious. So it shouldn’t have surprised me when we were at the country club and one of my son’s friends saw him and said, “I thought you guys were poor.”
You know how those tumblers align on certain locks and then suddenly it pops open? Right there sitting on a lounge chair by the pool, everything fell into place and my mental block was cleared.
Though I thought it was a funny thing for a kid to say, that’s not what bothered me. No one needs to know my income, or lack thereof (secret: club membership starts at about the same cost as a gym membership); it was the sudden realization that my boys don’t follow minimum standards. So much so that a kid came up to my son and said he thought he was poor, which also explained why their friends were giving them clothes and shoes.
While I don’t care what people think about my financial situation, I do absolutely care if they think I’m a slob. That’s probably because I kind of am. It’s not entirely my fault either. I lay blame on having a big family with two parents who work. No matter what, our house is always going to look like we were just robbed and ransacked.
I have a thing about leaving my house a mess in the morning. If ever there was an excuse to leave your house a mess, the morning before work and school would be it. No one will see it.
Or will they? I fear that I’ll have to run home for my notes that I forgot there, and that some friend or relation I haven’t seen in years will happen by and catch me there fetching my notes, and we’ll have coffee but I won’t be able to find a spoon for the creamer because my sink is overflowing with dishes and every single dish towel will be dirty. Or worse, what if someone breaks into my house and sees that it’s a mess. Nevermind if my 30-inch TV, the one with the cord that’s been chewed by my dog and a remote with no back on it, is gone, but the crackhead thief could see the pile of clean, unfolded laundry that I dumped on the couch before I left!
It bugs me so much that I am constantly doing tiny little chores that even if you add them all up don’t make much of a difference, and so they are effectively a waste of time. For example, my husband recently broke his arm while on a work trip. He needed me to get him from the hospital—a four-hour drive away. I was concerned, I was a little overwhelmed, my honey was hurt and possibly needed surgery to repair his arm. I quickly threw together a bag of clothes for me and my son and packed everything and everyone, including the dog, into the car for the long, but hurried drive north. With the car packed, I ran inside for one last check to make sure doors and windows were locked, and then I indulged myself in a frantic washing of five of the eight dishes in the sink before leaving.
Minimum standards people.
Shelly Cone can keep it all together, but she does what she can. Contact her at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Aug 4-11, 2016.