What is his obsession with my dryer?

Explain something to me.

Explain how on earth my pink headphones managed to appear in the dryer, after four other loads of laundry had been done, with the white towels without having gone through the washer because they still work?

How does this happen??????

You guessed it. 

My headphones have been returned. In my dryer.

They were all twisted from being in the dryer.

And as much as it didn't make sense when Padawan's headphones appeared in there last time, it makes less sense this time. My headphones are pink. My bedroom floor was cleaned. I separated the whites on the floor. White towels in one pile, socks and underwear in another pile, and everything else in a third pile. I washed the lights first, then the darks, then the whites.

And somehow, in the first load of whites, the headphones appeared. But they still work, which clearly means they did not go into the washer first. 

I wish I could tell you how it happened.

But I haven't got the faintest idea. Not even the smallest fraction of a reasonable explanation except to say that I believe Kane really exists and he is trying to drive me absolutely insane.

It's especially suspicious that my headphones appeared after I told Kane (while Padawan wasn't home, obviously, because I don't want him to think I'm nuts) that he could stay with me if he wanted and I didn't particularly care what he did to Padawan's things, but I would totally perform a cleansing and kick his ass out if he didn't return my things and leave them alone from now on.

But that's not even the weird part.

One of my two missing shirts has made a miraculous reappearance.

Hanging up in my closet. 

Inside out.

With deodorant marks on it. 

My dirty shirt was hanging up in my closet. I do not hang up clothes after I've worn them. It doesn't matter if I only wore something for an hour. Or just five minutes. Once it's been on my body and pulled off again, it's dirty. I do not hang them back up until they come out of the dryer.

Padawan hangs things even though they've been worn.

So I asked him. "Padawan, did you take my shirt out of the dirty clothes hamper and hang it up in my closet because I only wore it long enough to see a movie?"

"No. You hate it when I hang up my own shirts after I've worn them. Why would I hang up YOUR shirts? Do you think I'm trying to make you kill me?"

"Well how else could it have gotten up there? It wasn't even hung up properly! It was inside out!"

"All I can tell you is I didn't do it."

And I found them within minutes of each other. How ridiculous is that?

Aside from that bit of insanity, Saturday was Padawan's first day of his new schedule. He is now off on Saturdays and Sundays, and he works nine to six Monday through Friday. This new schedule has some advantages. He no longer has to get up at four in the morning, we can stay out later than ten o'clock on Friday and Saturday nights, and even on weeknights because he doesn't have to worry about not getting enough sleep, and we can finally enjoy having one day off a week together.

The down side is that he no longer gets off at three in the afternoon so he feels like his days are shorter and he has less time to accomplish daily things, like being there when packages are delivered or when maintenance comes by to change the AC filter. He also won't be able to pick Master Plo Koon up on Mondays and Fridays anymore because he can't get from his office building in Austin all the way to Leander in rush hour traffic in half an hour. (Master Plo Koon has to be picked up by 6:30 Monday through Friday.)

This means, of course, that Clueless will have to take on the responsibility of picking Master Plo Koon up and dropping him off at our apartment. She could, of course, just watch him for a couple of hours until Mother comes home because she lives with them and it's a much shorter drive from their house to the school. But when she was asked to watch him...

Well, the short of it is she would rather spend the gas to pick him up and bring him all the way to Northwest Austin in rush hour traffic to leave with us than stay there and watch him for an hour to two hours at most twice a week.  Actually, Mother had to work on Saturday (she does it once a month) and she asked Clueless to watch him and she said, "Oh, no. I can't. I have to go to work at noon."

She's a waitress, and the restaurant she works at doesn't even open until four in the afternoon. Why would she possibly need to be there four hours before opening? The short version is that she just didn't want to watch him. She also insisted that since Mother was driving by our apartment on her way to work anyway, she might as well just drop Master Plo Koon off on her way to work Saturday morning. 

Bam. She didn't even have to watch him for a couple of hours, and no one was around to prove that she didn't have to be at work until four. 

And it's not that I don't like having Master Plo Koon around. It's just...his sister should take some of the responsibility of looking after him, too. She lives with them, rent and bill free, and she literally does nothing for anybody else, but expects to be bailed out of whatever mess she gets herself into while she screams and blames everyone else for her problems. 

Also, it drives me absolutely nuts that Master Plo Koon plays with my things when I'm not there, leaves Legos under the blankets on my side of the bed, stuffs his socks in between the cushions of the furniture and leaves it there, helps himself to whatever he wants without asking and then acts like I'm a monster for telling him he should ask first because it's not his stuff, and he leaves food laying around on the floor and furniture where Choo Choo generally finds it. These things irritate me, and no matter how many times I tell him not to do theses things, no matter how often I tell him don't play on the exercise bike, he does it anyway. And when I get onto him for the millionth time he says, "I forgot! I have more important things to think about than what I'm not allowed to do."

It's moments like those that drive home the fact I'm not cut out for parenthood. I want nothing more than to say, "Well, then, you just sit in that chair and stare at the wall until your mother gets here so you don't have to worry about misbehaving."

And as bad as he is with us sometimes...he completely walks over his mother. She'll come pick him up and tell him, "Put on your socks and shoes. I have cold groceries in the car. We need to leave now," and he'll keep playing his game for five more minutes until I snap at him to listen to his mother. Then he puts his shoes on, sits down, and starts playing the video game again. And she'll say, "Come on, we need to leave," he'll say, "Wait! I'm not done!"

And that's when I generally get fed up and I say, "Your mother just told you to do something. Turn off the game now or I'll turn it off for you. She has groceries sitting in the car." And most of the time that works. But sometimes it doesn't and I go and shut off the TV just like I threatened. 

It's not that I don't adore Master Plo Koon. I do. I just think he's entirely too spoiled for his own good, and I think Clueless should have to deal with his behavior a couple of hours a week. Of course, knowing her she'd ignore him and let him do whatever he wanted and he'd probably end up electrocuting himself or something.

*sigh*

I really can't wait to see how all of this unfolds after Clueless's court date. Last time she got two months, but got out on good behavior after a month. What do you think they'll give her this time? A year? Two years?