September 30th, 2026
By Emergency Contact (EC)
There are evenings where I look around my home and think:
Wow. My children are so lucky to have such a stable, enriching
environment.
This was not one of those evenings.
I was in the bathtub.
Or, as I prefer to call it once I’ve been in there long enough:
Soup.
Lady Glitter Sparkles had made cinnamon rolls in the air fryer, because
apparently we had reached the part of the evening where culinary
decisions were being made without oversight.
She walks into the bathroom holding one.
“This kinda looks nasty.”
Now, a reasonable person might interpret their own statement as a
warning.
Sparkles interpreted it as a review.
And then proceeded to eat it.
A few bites later:
“I don’t think it’s done.”
She holds it up for inspection.
I look at the raw doughy center.
Unfortunately, my brain immediately identifies the shape.
“That raw part looks like testicles.”
Silence.
Sparkles looks at the cinnamon roll.
She looks at me.
She can no longer eat the cinnamon roll.
Please understand:
The cinnamon roll looking nasty did not stop her.
The cinnamon roll being visibly undercooked did not stop her.
The realization that she had already had cinnamon-roll balls on her
lips?
Meal concluded.
Apparently everyone has boundaries.
Some people’s are just located significantly farther down the road.
The Cinnamon Roll Enters Its Well-Done Era
Sparkles eventually returned with another cinnamon roll.
This one had apparently been subjected to additional corrective action.
“I had to cook it two more times, so now it’s kinda burnt.”
Understandable.
Then she said something that I believe deserves preservation in the
historical record:
“I liked it better raw because it had character.”
Ma’am.
It had salmonella.
Which is exactly what I told her.
“Yeah, and salmonella.”
This was apparently not the supportive response she was looking for.
But I stand by it.
Raw Cinnamon Roll Sparkles may have had more personality, but some
characters are written out of the show for a fucking reason.
Meanwhile, I Had Become a Jacuzzi
At some point during all of this, I decided regular soup was no longer
sufficient.
So I turned on the jets.
I was no longer simply Soup.
I was Jacuzzi Soup.
This is self-care.
Look it up.
Sparkles, meanwhile, was still hanging around the bathroom because
privacy in this household is more of a theoretical concept than an
actual practice.
Eventually, she sat down on the toilet to pee.
I continued being Jacuzzi Soup.
We continued talking.
We continued laughing.
And then Sparkles suddenly informed me that I had made her laugh so hard
that she had laughed out a turd.
She wasn’t even there to shit.
She had arrived with a completely different agenda.
Her body apparently received new instructions mid-procedure.
This was an unscheduled secondary deployment.
At this point, both of us were crying.
Not emotionally.
We had moved beyond regular laughter and entered the stage where you’re
making almost no sound, your stomach hurts, tears are streaming down
your face, and every time you start to recover, somebody says one
fucking sentence and you’re gone again.
And somewhere in the middle of this, I had a realization.
Oh Fuck. We’re the Adults.
We have children.
Actual children.
Human children.
Who depend on us.
For survival.
And here were the two adults currently responsible for maintaining the
household:
One was naked in a homemade jacuzzi referring to herself as soup.
The other had recently had cinnamon-roll testicles on her lips and had
now been laughed into an unexpected bowel movement.
Both were crying.
Neither was capable of meaningful leadership.
And I just kept thinking:
The poor children.
One day they’re going to be old enough to fully understand who was in
charge during their childhood.
They’re going to look back at all the adults who raised them and
realize:
Wait.
These bitches were management?
Yes, babies.
Unfortunately.
We were.
We’d Like to Request New Management
I imagine the children eventually filing a formal complaint.
We have concerns regarding current leadership.
Understandable.
We would like to request new management.
Also understandable.
Unfortunately:
Request denied due to insufficient staffing.
There is no escalation path.
There is no corporate office.
There is no competent supervisor waiting somewhere above us.
This is the highest level of leadership available.
I’m so fucking sorry.
But here’s the thing.
The babies are loved.
They’re fed.
They’re safe.
They’re snuggled.
Their needs are met.
Their mother will rearrange an entire day around them without
hesitation.
And sometimes the adults responsible for creating that safe little world
are also sitting in the bathroom at night crying because one of them
accidentally laughed a turd out while the other made jacuzzi bubbles.
Both things can be true.
We can be responsible mothers and complete fucking idiots.
We can have routines, schedules, safety plans, appointments, laundry,
bottles, dishes, bedtime, work, bills, and seventeen thousand
responsibilities—
and still lose our absolute shit because somebody had cinnamon-roll
balls on their lips.
Because we’re adults.
We’re mothers.
We’re responsible for other human beings.
We’re exhausted.
We’re doing our best.
And, most importantly:
We’re just girls. 💅✨
The children will be fine.
Probably.
Their request for new management remains denied.
✨ BALANCE. ✨
—EC 🌈
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