September has arrived in Orlando and with it comes a massively increased chance of Hurricanes, the disappearance of 90% of the British tourists and most importantly to me at least, it means that my wife and children actually leave the damn house.
School holidays in America are literal torture. I think I have written about it before, but these kids get 12 and a half damn weeks off and with Laura now working at a School, she gets the same! I don’t begrudge my family anything, I am soft, if they want it and I can give it to them they get it, but I swear to God I begrudge them 88 consecutive days off.
Fred had been counting down the hours to the start of the Summer holidays since about November last year, he “hates” school. I say that in speech marks, because he doesn’t really hate school, he hates being forced to be anywhere he hasn’t chosen to be. Harriet was excited but not insanely so and Laura has never needed an excuse to sleep more. In theory I am really happy for them that they get so much time off.
In reality, I hate it and everything it stands for.
In school time we have a routine, Laura and I get up before 6am, get ready, Laura makes the tea (when we have teabags) I get myself prepared for another day at the dream factory, we get Fred up, I take him to School, Laura takes Harriet. All very mundane, all very normal. There’s a solidarity in us all being up just a little earlier than we would like. We get home at slightly different times, me last, but there is structure
Summer comes… All bets are off
It is hard to put into words the level of utter and total resentment I feel getting up to a completely quiet house, with the exception of both Laura and Fred snoring so loud I have had to check our home insurance policy for vibration damage coverage. Getting ready for work either completely in the dark, or in our closet, so as not to wake sleeping beauty from her 13 hour a day slumber.
Then, dragging my sorry ass to work, dealing with nothing but problems all day, the routine occasionally interrupted at about 11.45am by a text from Laura either telling me she “doesn’t know what to do for dinner” or that Harriet is still asleep. Boredom creeps into the Shroder household during Summer about 2pm every day as well. The texts coming from both Laura and Fred. Harriet gave up communicating with me about 35 seconds past midnight on her 13th birthday.
I drive home after work, always the long way during the summer, I don’t want to get home. Those three have been in the house all day, for some unknown reason despite living in the entertainment capital of the world, nobody has mustered enough energy to get out of the front door and they all hate each other. Fred has spent 7 solid hours “ragebaiting” anyone who would even look at him, Laura still has no idea whats for dinner and Harriet is somehow tired and emotional despite sleeping for the entire day.
When I do get home, I’d just love 20 minutes. 20 minutes to destress, to get my head around the shambles I am walking into. That is not an option.. 88 days straight.. 88 days I am somehow expected to come up with ideas that they can do, fund them, and then when I get home I have to be the dealer in our “First to 50 wins annual summer Uno tournament” First to 50! There are four of us, it could feasibly go on for 197 individual games of Uno!
This summer though Laura found a new hobby… Selling shit on Vinted. It started off innocently enough, I’ve lost a few pounds, there are some suits and jeans and stuff that are now way too big. She was selling my stuff for literal pennies.. Ralph Lauren suit… $12.. But it’s fine thats $12 we didn’t have before I guess. Then it suddenly got a bit out of hand. USPS started delivering packaging supplies. LOTS of packaging supplies. I’ve just checked and next to my bed right now there are 73 flat pack boxes for shipping. It seemed a lot, we don’t have that many clothes to sell.
My suspicions were proven right when randomly one day, Fred and Laura went to Goodwill (Imagine a charity shop, where literally none of the money goes to charity and all goes to a private company) to “buy stock”.
Buy… Stock… You are knocking out $600 suits for $12 Laws, what in the hell are you going to buy at Goodwill to sell? She bought Jeans and T-Shirts and a whole bunch of stuff she was sure was going to fly off the virtual shelves..
What basically ended up happening was that a pair of jeans would be purchased for $9 at Goodwill, a place that is 5 miles from home on a very slow moving and busy road. Laura would then manage to sell these same Jeans to some unsuspecting heavy set gentleman in Nebraska for $9.30. On paper, an incredible 30 cent profit..
When you factor in the 90 minutes to go to Goodwill and back, the solid hour taking pictures and listing the item, the hour packing it up, taking it to the post office to send, and the emailing of the shipping label to me to print at work, at least 4 hours went into that sale, to generate 30 cents.. 7.5 cents per hour. Oh and at least 5 of the “stock items” are now in full rotation in her wardrobe. Warren Buffet she aint..
Harriet avoided the entire thing. She has no interest in anything whatsoever that isn’t available to watch on Hulu or Disney+. We’ve lost her, my one island of peace in this house gone. She slept almost every daylight hour of the summer I am led to believe. I wouldn’t know, because I was out busting my ass every day.
They have all been back to school and work now for 3 weeks. Routine has been reestablished. The evenings spent being forced into entertaining the entire family has finished for me, replaced by homework and Laura on the phone for 4 hours after work, to her work colleagues, discussing what happened at work, and what might happen at work tomorrow, if they all turn up to work… Her level of chat diminishes greatly when she back in the clutches of Orange County Public Schools. The 11pm bedtimes replaced by Laura in bed asleep watching Court TV at 7.30.
They hate it. They are already counting down the days to Thanksgiving and another week off.
I love it! Welcome to the real world bitches!
The Shroders in Florida 