$%#£!$

That's what hit the fan today.  Or more accurately, a good percentage of the floor surface of my house.

Immediately after school, Thing Two did his homework and then read me his assigned book on the sofa.  As time was getting short before we had to leave for Thing One's piano lesson, I asked Thing One to take the dog outside and then put her in her crate upstairs while we finished up.  He did so, but as we were all subsequently getting ready to leave, I noticed a odd smell in the mudroom and something brown on the floor.

Yes, you guessed it.  My brainiac eldest had stepped in dog poop outside (actually, based on the bottoms of his shoes, it looked more like he ice-skated in it!) and then obliviously walked from the back door through my kitchen and front hall and UP MY LIGHT-CARPETED STAIRS to the crate before retracing his steps.  There was shit everywhere.  Literally.  And my brainiac eldest didn't notice anything at all until I called his attention to the marks in a rather frantic and agitated manner.  Which marks we of course had to leave where they were for the time being to add insult to injury, since we were already late.

But I did tell Thing One that he was cleaning the carpet by himself when we got home, and to his credit, he did a great job.  Although he made such a mess of himself in the process of cleaning his shoes on the driveway afterward that I made him strip down to his skivvies in the mud room, drop all of his clothes directly into the washing machine and then take a hot shower before he could come to the dinner table!

A nicer mother probably wouldn't have told this story.  But since I was the one who had to clean the kitchen and hall floors while he was scrubbing the carpet, he's out of luck...