Sorry excuse for an excuse

I walked in from work at 10:40 last night. I am not sure what could've been going on in my house that would've seemed delightful, but I knew what I had stumbled upon was not even close. I thought the kids were in bed, and then saw the daughter standing at the kitchen sink on the verge of making, or cleaning up, a mess of some sort. The son came out of the shower and immediately realized he was missing an electronic device, and needed a flashlight...pronto...to go outside to look for it. (Perturbed alert level at yellow.) Flashlights were not in their usual locations, and the one I found had no batteries (level-orange).

As I wandered through the kitchen, I stopped at the table to steady myself from the buzzing of activity going on (by everyone, except the husband who was sitting on the couch watching tv). It was then that I noticed the bag full of stuff on my chair. There were two soaking wet towels and three wet bathing suits (none of which were mine) from the pool party I had left them at when I went to work, several hours earlier, in the bag. (LEVEL - RED folks, she is going to blow!) I started ranting to nobody in particular, or directly to that guy on the couch, who's to say. I caught a quick glimpse of the couchmaster with that look of "maybe if I am quiet, she won't see me" on his face.

The son was still on his search and rescue mission and the daughter had gone to shower as the hour closed in on 11:00 p.m. I started to process the evening's events. They had returned home by 8:00, and then the kids had gone next door to watch a movie that was about two hours long. I decided this was ample alone time for my husband to have taken any obvious measures to prevent crimson terror levels, so I went back to request an explanation for the soggy bag of their stuff. (I must state here that it is not necessarily the case that I think HE should've dealt with the bag, but he coulda shoulda made sure somebody did!)

Now we have heard him give some shoddy explanations for past behavior regarding things like plungers, bargain shopping,and laundry. Suffice to say, he did not disappoint, as this in the conversation that followed:

me: Why would you not deal with this bag of wet things?

couch: Well I wasn't sure what you wanted done with them?

me: What?

couch: I didn't know.

me: But you would have to agree that they do not belong in the bag on this chair?

couch: But I didn't know if you wanted them upstairs, or down here in the laundry room.

me: Um, I wouldn't have cared which. How do you act like you've never seen where such items go? You could've asked the kids...for crying out loud!

couch: (silence)

Clearly this was not a battle worth fighting...for the guy on the couch, who we both knew had lost.