Death, Puke & Passive Aggressive Family Dynamics

Sometimes (ok, most of the time) I get sick of having to clean-up after everyone else. Most of you know that I am domestically challenged. Cleaning doesn't relieve stress or give me a high. In fact, I try to avoid it much like I avoid liver--at all costs. However, my family members don't respect this. If they truly loved me, they would not only clean-up after themselves, but me as well. Are you all snickering yet? My house is decorated in what I fondly (and sometimes embarrassingly) call 'Post-Katrina' decor. 

If you were a fly or a stink bug residing in my house, here is a sample of typical daily conversation. Mom, the cat puked. Well, why don't you clean it up? Why should I clean it up? Well, you saw it first, and it is your cat. Mom, I'm not cleaning it up. That's disgusting. It will make me puke. Why should I clean it up? Because you are the mom and it's your job. 

This is the kind of remark that sends me over the edge. You know-- that murderous, I'm going to punish you for the rest of your life or at least until you can learn to not be a sexist, chauvenist, piglet. However, I'm told that this is improper parenting and may even be considered abusive. I personally believe that allowing your son to grow up to be a sexist piglet is not only abusive, but should be punished by death. I think I'm in the minority, considering how many sexist piglets reside not only in my son's school, but full-grown man pigs in Philadelphia as well as the greater United States. 

I digress. The story that best illustrates our dysfunctional, passive-aggressive family dynamic concerns a dead thing and my son's cat. The cat doing what cats do brings home dead things and leaves them by the sliding glass door. A few months ago, I decided to leave the dead thing (a mole) to see how long it would take someone to either throw it away or give it a proper burial. I'm still waiting. The dead thing doesn't seem to bother anyone else, but me. It now blends in with the patio and has lost all of its bodily fluids. I figure if I wait long enough, it will turn into a skeleton and I can make art with it.