Saturday Stripper

"I've been a lousy mom today," I confessed to Chris.

"Is it because we had doughnuts for breakfast, leftovers for lunch, and now you want to eat out dinner?"

"No. I wasn't referring to my neglect in feeding my family; I was referring to my neglect of my children in general. I think Deacon has been playing on the PBS Kids website since he woke up this morning--with the exception of the time he watched a movie while downing a bag of Cheetos. McKay was supposed to be grounded until she cleaned her room, but I forgot about that and let her watch a movie. Her bedroom is still a disaster. And I'm not exactly sure where Parker is. He told me about two hours ago he was going to go play with friends, so I have a pretty good idea..."

The door slams downstairs. "Mom...," Parker calls.

"Whew. He's still alive."

Parker bounds upstairs with his friend Kaleb right behind him. "What's for dinner?"

"Shake-n-Take."

I have a good reason for not cooking all day. It's Saturday. But my other reason is that I am in the midst of refinishing my kitchen table. The table's unusable and my kitchen counters are cluttered with stain and sandpaper and other non-edible ingredients.

My family, plus Kaleb, is sitting around a table at Shake-n-Take downing a ridiculous quantity of fries, when Parker tells Kaleb, "I think we're going to have to redshirt Reslon."

Reslon is one of the four boys that make up the neighborhood football "team." Give it three months and that group of boys will make up the neighborhood baseball team, but right now they're still on a football kick.

"You can't redshirt, Reslon," I say.

"Mom, he fumbles the ball all the time." Kaleb is nodding his head in agreement, and Parker is shaking his head at me. Apparently I just don't get it.

We return home to our in-process table. When we first started to strip the table, I suggested we put hand sanitizer on the table. I'd once spilled a blob of it on the table, and it had taken the finish off perfectly. So I spread hand sanitizer all over the table, and it took part of the finish off, but not all of it.

"This isn't working," Chris said, looking at the table. "I think we need something more powerful."

"Are you asking me if you can get a table stripper?"

One table stripper later, the letters "BYU" that Parker carved into the table are gone. So is the glitter glue, the unwashable washable paint, and the spots where our children pounded their forks into the finish. The table is beautiful.

And now I have no excuse for not feeding my family. Except I think tomorrow might be fast Sunday...