Welcome Home

It's nearing 1:00 a.m. here on the east coast, and I've just checked the Korean Air website to see that the Princeling's flight is in the air and has been for a few hours. After nearly 14 hours aloft in the atmosphere, he'll touch down in New York, where I, his devoted mother will be waiting to welcome home. Little does he know that I've spent his vacation mucking out his cage. And I do not use the term "mucking" lightly. As a teenager, I was enrolled in riding school. When you learn to ride horses, you also learn to take care of them. I mucked out plenty of stalls, and there really was no difference between mucking those horse stalls or mucking out the monkey cage.
There are now two large trash bags on the curb full of cage muckings. A good deal of this was candy wrappers, old socks, tests from ninth grade, and bits and pieces of pencils, crayons and erasers. His mattress has been turned (not an easy task on a double sized loft bed), and bedding is in the washing machine. Earlier in the week I raked up the dirty clothes left on the floor, washed and folded them, and then wrestled the clean items into drawers. The poor clean clothing items were frightened by the dark recesses of the bureau drawers since they had never been inside. Shoes danced happily with mates long lost to the deadly clutter. Dust mites and spiders ran for the windows at the sound of the vacuum. It was amazing.
I'm sure none of this will be appreciated by the Princeling. I will have to listen to a rant about invasion of privacy. Even Kong asked if I should be in the Princeling's room. I just smiled and asked him, "Did you send in the mortgage check for this month?" It's OUR room after all. He just lives here. Rent free. And now, after great risk to my own personal health, the monkey cage is passable. I could have continued to the point of immaculate cleanliness, but I couldn't. My skin was breaking out in rashes and my eyes were tearing. I will have to call in a toxic waste removal team to finish the job.