“Hand me that remote please.” I heard Chase say from the other room. Well, they seem to be getting along now. I was busy getting laundry folded and was more than content to have my two boys not at each other throats for once. ”Hey, you little turd on a frog’s ass, I said to hand me the remote!” I could hear Chase complaining with his usual attitude.

I took a deep breath in and started towards the game room. However, before I could reach my destination and defuse the situation I hear my younger son “Screw you monkey face! Get off your fat lazy a...”

“Samuel! So help me, you finish that sentence and I will smack that smart mouth of yours. Well that was short lived. Can’t you two get along for more than five minutes? Or better yet at least let me finish cleaning before you two commence killing each other. Maybe, just maybe, you two can use all that energy and clean your rooms. Now there’s a novel idea.”

“Mom why are you going to yell at me but not him? That’s not fair! And my room is clean.” I sighed as Samuel’s voiced squeaked making it sound whiny instead of matching the look of indignation on his face. Puberty can be so hard sometimes, funny but hard.

“Chase, you shouldn’t talk to your brother like that. Your arms and legs aren’t broken. So get off your butt and get it yourself. Samuel you did no better either. Talking back to me is not a way to win your case by the way. Both of you, stop fighting and cussing or you’re grounded. I don’t care who started it, I will finish it. My house, my rules.” I had to turn my back and walk away but I could feel the daggers of their eyes boring in. Teenagers are so much fun.

I picked up the laundry I had folded and headed down the hallway to drop-off my payload at it designated stops. I had left their clean clothes in what should be the boys’ rooms, but they look more like a disaster areas, clean my foot. I was on my merry way down the hallway until I was interrupted by my roommate, Alexis or Lexi as I called her. She yanked opened her door and nearly gave me a heart attack almost causing the clean clothes I was carrying to fall to the floor. Something tells me that my list of things to do will be put on hold for a second. She just looked too excited and full of mirth right now at my expense, something usual for her.

“Hahaha. You should’ve seen your face. Oh my, that was a good one.” She stood holding the door open with one hand and leaning on the door frame with the other grinning like a cheshire cat.

“Glad I could amuse you.” I said sarcastically. “You wanted something blondie?” I said with a raised eyebrow. Alexis was 5’ 7” with an athletic build that most would kill for in their thirties. She did nothing that would ensure she kept it really; she consumed an insane amount of sugar which should have worked against her but somehow, she never could put on an ounce and was an insomniac. Her hair’ normally blonde, was a deep shade of blue and cut short with it shaved underneath. Her ice blue eyes were shaking with mirth still as she looked at me. She was wearing her favorite army fatigues with a black tank and a camo baseball cap on backwards, her usual attire.

“Not a blonde anymore and haven’t been in forever.” She gave me a raised eyebrow and then continued. “Now, what was it again…Oh yeah, you have to come here and check this out.” She turned around and motioned me to follow her into the room.

I rolled my eyes and set down my load of laundry in the hallway, I still had my room and the guest bathroom towels left to do. Going into her room was always dangerous and I didn’t want my clean laundry to fall on the floor. I sure as hell was not going to hold the basket the whole time either. I sighed in exasperation as I surveyed the best path through towards her computer desk, our destination. . “Do you think you could pick up in here? I mean do you even remember what the floor looks like?” I complained as I stepped over piles of art supplies, books, clothes and various papers. I had no clue what could be hiding under any of it.

She gave me her BITE ME look which was a combo glare and a thinning of the lips, while saying in dead pan tone “Quit being so anal, you can’t control everything and I know where everything is so piss off about it already. It’s not that bad.” She had stopped next her computer desk to turn and stare at me. “What has gotten into you today? You’re worse than normal.”

I held my hands up in surrender knowing with that tone it was not the time to start nagging about the mess. “I don’t know. Maybe the boys fighting, the meeting tomorrow with those clients from overseas. I guess it all has made me a little on edge and bitchy. So, what was it you wanted to show me?” I asked her before we got too far off topic.

“Well,” She said as she plopped down in her computer chair with an excited voice. “I was looking on the net and do you remember that article awhile back about the neutrino that only some labs had seen?” At this I just nodded hoping she would continue so I could finish my cleaning for the day. “It so happens that some government lab overseas is going to or has been running experiments just to see if they can find it and run tests on it. They want to see what it is, why it only shows up sometimes and under what conditions they can cause it to show up. Oh, and it says here I quote ‘if the neutrino has any practical use to advance humankind’.” Her eyes were alight with an inner fire while telling me about this. I never understood physics, so I could not get excited about it like she did. That level of science was just beyond me but for her it was a nerdy little hobby. Not to mention anytime humanity started ‘tinkering’ with things as she put it she would get really happy.

“I see bad things or at least the potential for bad things. What government and where exactly?” As I am saying this her grin just gets wider and she begins jumping with excitement in her computer chair. I can’t help but think there goes my whole schedule for the evening. “Wasn’t it just a software glitch anyways at the other labs that did ‘see’ something?”

She turned towards her computer screens and with a few quick motions pulled up two different articles to show me. “Well as you can see here in this one.” She pointed to the article on her left monitor. “They don’t think it was fluke. They think they might have found something. The tests are to see if….” She stops as we both hear the fighting and destruction coming from the other end of the house. We look at each other and I take off at a run. I have one thought at the time and that is to stop my kids from destroying anything else.

“OW! YOU BASTARD!” I picked up speed in the hallway as I hear Samuel and his foul mouth at it. I tried to increase my speed but it was then I heard several things breaking in the distance.

CRASH! BANG! THOMP!

“FUCK YOU! YOU LITTLE SHIT” I hear Chase reply sounding somewhat distorted.

“HAHAHAHAHAHA” I can hear Samuel cackling as I am about to round the corner to the game room.

SLAM! I could hear the sounds of meaty flesh being hit right before I entered the room. “STOP IT NOW BOTH OF YOU!” I screamed. Samuel froze, towering over his older brother with his left fist poised to strike again. His normally well-kept chestnut hair was disheveled and had fallen into his emerald eyes. His white school uniform shirt was torn open at the collar with smears of crimson and had come untucked from his navy pants. Chase was on the floor with his blonde hair looking matted with something; both his hands covering his face. I could see the blood already coming down his chin. His clothes were in an equal state as his younger brother. The room itself looked like one of our spring tornados had ripped through it. It was then I heard Lexi’s sharp intake of breath as she seen the room or rather what was left of it. “Both of you, to your rooms now! You are both so beyond grounded until forever!” I growled in a low tone as I clenched my fist. I had reached my limit for the day with everyone and everything.

“But mom, my nose…” Chase started to protest sounding a bit odd due to his bloody nose. I just glared at him giving him the adult version of his earlier daggers.

It was at this time their Aunt Lexi came to their rescue or I would have killed them both right there. “You know what there Chase dude? I will take care of that nose for ya. Your mom is a little pissed right now. And I’ll get your knuckles patched up too Sam.” Lexi said as she ushered the kids out.

I just leaned against the wall and stared at what was once a state of the art gaming room. I felt my legs give out and my vision go blurry as I hung my head to cry. Why do they do this to me all the time? Why can’t we have anything nice?

I had been sitting on the floor with my back against the wall and my head in my hands for a while when Alexis walked in. “Hey, I am surprised you haven’t started cleaning this up yet? What, with you being so meticulous about everything.” I just grunted in no mood to respond verbally to her jibes. She continued undaunted. “Well, Miss Anal. I thought you should know that your boxing boys are all patched up.” I could hear her pick something up and let in fall broken into the mess in the room. “Damn, you just bought that too and I really liked that one. Little shits.” I could hear her walking over to the far side of the room and open the glass case that housed the sound system. “Well, let’s get this back in shape. I think some heavy rock is what we need for this. And besides, if you don’t do this now, you won’t sleep. You with no sleep equals ass. I definitely won’t deal with you nor your bitching if you manage to screw up your meeting because of it. Now, get up.”

She clicked on the music as I was rising and the old CD player came to life. I went to the kitchen to grab the box of garbage bags. This was going to take a few and I knew it. They had managed to crush the coffee table, the new VR console system, our old Super NES and a few old controllers in their fight.

It took about two hours to straighten up the mess they had created. Alexis was placing some figurines I had back on a shelf when I came back in from taking the garbage out. “Lexie, that one is a little off.” I told her as I was walking across the room in that direction.

“Huh?” She glanced back at me over her shoulder.

“That one is a little off. It should be about two inches to the right and the one on the end is supposed to be…” I said as I got a little closer and was taking a measuring tape out of my pocket.

“Ah hell.” She turned around, stepped back then crossed her arms as she rolled her eyes at me. “Here it comes. If you’re going to be that picky, do it yourself.”

“Fine I will.” I told her as I walked past her and bent down over the shelf. “You get it wrong anyways.” I was using my measuring tape to make sure that everything was in its proper place when she started further complaints from behind me.

“You are not actually using that measuring tape again are you?” Lexi was standing right behind me looking over my shoulder. “Oh my gods! You are! You are actually using a measuring tape!” She said in an accusatory tone while straightening up and walking towards the doorway. “I can’t believe the lengths you go to. That’s it, I’m going to bed. The levels of anal retentiveness you have reached is beyond me for today.” She shook her head at me. “I can’t take anymore right now. Goodnight Angelik. Have fun with your OCD problem there chica.” She said as she continued to what I could guess was her bedroom for the night.

It was a few hours later that I had managed to get everything squared away in the room, put the laundry away, pack my lunch for work and was finally able to head to bed. I just wanted sleep. I was thankful for my mundane office job. I just was not looking forward to the meeting. I was only going to get 4 hours of sleep which means I will be a bitchy person again tomorrow, just for a different reason. But I crawled into bed at 1 am and made sure my alarm was on before turning out my light for yet another boring day at work.