Peeling Potatoes 50: I Sent The Mayor Back To Intermediate Fruitloop University

I knew we were in trouble before we even started, because we had barely gone live and The Mayor was already asking why I was crying. I was not crying. There was a hair stuck in my lashes, and it was tickling me, which is completely different. Naturally, this led to the very important academic question of whether I am ticklish.

Yes, I am extremely ticklish.

And no, nobody must touch my feet unless they have made peace with death. I told him very clearly: if anyone touches my feet, I will kick, scream, slap, and generally become a dangerous small domestic tornado. The Mayor, of course, heard “challenge accepted,” because he has watched Dumb and Dumber and believes that if there is even a 0.000001% chance, then mathematically there is still a chance.

Ladies and gentlemen, the man is not well.

But he was on form, and so was I, because this was episode 50. A milestone. A proper, shiny, pineapple-on-top milestone. We should probably have been celebrating with cake, confetti, and a scarf, but I was not wearing a scarf, which already showed that the whole universe was slightly out of balance. Instead, we were talking about balance through routines, which sounds very respectable until you remember that this is us, and respectability usually lasts about seven seconds before someone mentions cats, unicorns, laundry wizards, or suspicious tea mountains.

I introduced him again to Fruitloop University, which is not a place for serious academics with straight faces and clipboards. It is a place where you get easy questions, silly questions, but then suddenly you have to think about them a little bit. That is the danger. The questions look like cupcakes, but some of them contain emotional dynamite.

The Mayor asked what courses he could enroll in, and I told him the obvious: being Fruitloopy, not a Cheerio. He has been enrolled for about fourteen months, but honestly, I had to admit my courses are not working. He has not become more Fruitloopy. This, naturally, caused him to accuse me of being submissive, because instead of saying, “Mr Mayor, you are the problem,” I said I needed to up my game.

That is why I made an executive academic decision. Last week had been advanced Fruitloop University, and it nearly took him apart. He had arrived in the wrong frame of mind, overthought everything, overanalyzed everything, and came out in pieces. So this week, I sent him back to intermediate level. Not beginners. Beginners is for other people. The Mayor is not a beginner. He is an unsuspecting guinea pig with dramatic tendencies.

The topic was routine, but of course we could not just talk about brushing teeth and making beds like normal people. We began with cats. I asked him what his schedule would look like if his three cats were in charge of his daily routine, and he immediately described paradise with claws. There would be a lot of sleeping, constant eating, begging, territorial rights, violent relocation if he sat in the wrong place, and possibly hunting birds and mice, bringing them home, eating them, regretting the decision, and vomiting the evidence for someone else to clean up.

He also remembered Tortue, the cat who once disappeared for two weeks around Christmas while his wife nearly lost her mind searching the neighborhood. Then Tortue simply walked back through the gate like she had been on a private holiday and wanted to know why there was no food ready. That, apparently, would also be part of a cat-run routine: disappear, cause emotional collapse in your favorite human, then return calm as a cucumber.

I gave him 10 out of 10 for that answer. I may have sounded bribable, but he earned it.

Then The Mayor turned the unicorn on me.

He asked what my face would do if a unicorn arrived tomorrow morning and told me everything was handled for the day. Before my mouth had time to be polite, my face would be surprised. But I would also be happy. Very happy. If all my normal responsibilities disappeared for one day, I would notice the lack of instructions first, maybe the space, but not the silence. There is no silence in my house. On weekends there are cartoons, laughing, jumping on and off things, paper wrappers, sweets, snacks, shoes everywhere, boys everywhere, and my son changing outfits like he is managing a fashion crisis in real time.

Sometimes he stays in pajamas all day, then at five o’clock suddenly wants to play outside, so he gets dressed for one hour, gets cold, puts a tracksuit over the clothes, and when everything comes off, it all comes off as one strange layered creature. On weekends, I look away. That is my routine. I look away from the domestic evidence.

The Mayor understood. Monday to Friday tension drains out, the house becomes lawless, and on Monday morning you clear up the debris.

Then I asked him which routine his wife would notice first if he skipped it for a week. That one was easy. Tea. The sacred morning cup of English tea. He gets up first, enjoys two precious hours alone before the day attacks him, and makes her tea in the correct mug, placed on the correct mat, on the bedside table that sounds like a curiosity shop in active rebellion. He takes the tea upstairs, tells her “your tea has landed,” and receives a grunt from the sleeping kingdom.

The tea has to survive tablets, delayed waking, and sometimes a microwave rescue mission. They even have a little rubber cover to keep the heat in. The Mayor calls this one of the few things he gets right in life, and I understood completely, because my husband makes the best coffee, tea, and hot chocolate. We can make it exactly the same way, but his tastes better. Obviously. It comes with love. That is the secret ingredient.

When The Mayor returned to the unicorn fantasy, he asked whether I would actually know what to do with a free day or whether I would wander around like someone whose job title had been temporarily deleted. I would know exactly what to do. I would read. I would stay in bed. I would watch movies. I would just sit. It sounds terrible, maybe, but I would know. I would not even go outside unless the season behaved itself. And with eight degrees and winter trying to crawl into my bones, absolutely not.

Then I asked him which cat would be the strictest routine manager. He gave me the full cat hierarchy. Sablé, the oldest, is now possibly older than The Mayor in human years and has reached the stage of not being bothered about very much, except when feeding responsibilities are neglected. Friday is the pacer, the communicator, the one with bedroom privileges and very clear ideas about what should happen. Uno is the young vampire-cat with little fang teeth, a burrowing habit, and a tendency to lash out if handled wrongly. The Mayor had recently removed a tick from Uno without bloodshed and considered it the achievement of the day.

The strictest routine manager, he decided, would be Friday. Uno would be close second, but Friday has seniority and sharper management skills.

Then he brought me back to the park. In the unicorn scenario, I was free, sitting in a park with nothing to solve. He asked who I would be before anyone needed me. That one landed differently. I think I would be more relaxed. Less stressed. I would sit there watching birds, counting leaves on trees, with no problems to solve. It would not necessarily change how I looked, but I would feel it. A relief. Like having a headache for a long time and then it just disappears.

But then came the responsibility radar.

He asked how long I could sit in the park before I started scanning for children, dogs, messages, forgotten things, or emotional weather changes. I said maybe thirty minutes to an hour. Guilt would come first. Then responsibility. Not because I wanted to get back, but because I would feel I had to. That is the difference. Want to and have to are not the same animal.

He asked whether responsible people sometimes struggle with freedom because freedom temporarily removes the proof that they matter. I did not agree. If you have responsibilities, you matter. If you have freedom, you still matter. Neither one decides your worth. For me, it depends more on who you are with and whether the people around you respect you enough to give you space.

He also said I have a deep sense of responsibility and loyalty, like it is part of my spine. I said it is fifty-fifty. I carry responsibility because life demands it, but also because I love it. Loyalty is the same. You may love it and live by it, but the world also requires more of it. Not forced loyalty. Not power loyalty. Real loyalty. The kind that comes because you value the person or the work you are loyal to.

That took us straight into Brida and the pain of people treating meaningful work as optional. The Mayor spoke about meetings being ditched when something better comes along, and how that devalues the care and effort behind the work. I could hear that one. Loyalty and respect are not small potatoes. They are the whole field.

And then, because this is us, we went from loyalty to laundry wizards.

I asked him whether he would do laundry more often if it summoned a wizard. That opened the Battle of the Washing Machine. In The Mayor’s house, there are three parties: his German mother, his English wife, and him, who apparently has nothing to say anyway. His wife is a laundry perfectionist and will wash three or four items because they need special treatment. His mother has a routine you can set a clock by but may still forget that Friday is her washing-machine day. His mother also comments constantly on the amount of washing, suggesting this must be an English thing.

The Mayor stands in the middle, negotiating two warring laundry nations while quietly wondering why anyone needs to wash that many clothes. He does his own laundry, bedding, and cat blankets on weekends, throws things in, and hopes for the best. A pair of shorts with red wine went into the machine with normal liquid and softener, and the stain came out. End of discussion. No chemical factory required.

I told him white wine can remove red wine stains, because I have proof. A friend’s aunt once spilled red wine on my white jacket. It turned purple. I washed it, it did not come out, then I rubbed it with white wine, washed it again, and the jacket survived. Ten years later, I still wear it. So yes, the wizard is useful, but white wine is also useful. Just do not drink it before the laundry emergency.

From there, The Mayor wandered into monasteries, which sounds like a strange road but actually made sense. He talked about spending time in a semi-monastic environment and how beautiful it was to live by a rhythm larger than himself: morning mass, silent breakfast, work, liturgy, lunch, work, evening prayer, dinner, quiet. A set routine, imposed but peaceful. An oasis in a turbulent world. He said he would love his own little private monastery, with the church twenty meters away, the world stable, the day shaped by something stronger than his own chaos.

That connected back to my childhood routine. School, home, lunch, homework, playing outside, my mother cooking at five because my father came home at six, bath time early, pajamas on, dinner ready. There was order. Boundaries. The chapter of the day closed when my father came home. I miss that sometimes. The Mayor understood it because he had something similar. His mother would even change and make herself nice before his father came home. That whole world has mostly gone out the window, but there was something beautiful in the structure.

Then we came back to the smallest routine a free person still needs. I said getting out of bed, getting dressed, brushing teeth, brushing hair, and making the bed. Making the bed is the first accomplishment of the day. In my house, this involves dogs fighting with me, one wanting to stay in bed, and then both fighting each other until I throw them out. Human over dog. The bed must be made.

If the unicorn gave me back only one routine, I would keep the getting-up-and-becoming-presentable routine. It is a good start. Even if sometimes I stay in pajamas. Sometimes I brush my hair and stay in pajamas. Sometimes I get dressed and do not brush my hair. I am a free person inside my own house.

Then I asked him what his routine would say if it started talking back. After taking the scenic route through appearance, Instagram, image, children not caring what they look like, and his mother-in-law eating breakfast at eleven, lunch at six, and dinner at ten, he decided his routine would probably say, “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay.” Also, “Who cares?” As long as you are comfortable in what you are doing, that is what matters.

Finally, he asked what routine my family could survive without even if my sense of responsibility complained dramatically. I said everything. Cooking, cleaning, washing, making beds, errands, shopping. They can do it all without me. They have simply found someone to delegate it to because I am there. And I am mostly happy with that. Some days not so much, but mostly yes.

For the final make-or-break question, I asked him what giant vegetable his routine would be. He chose potato, of course. Because potatoes are versatile, and routines are versatile. Big potatoes, little potatoes, changing routines, same basic substance. Also, potatoes are clearly important in this strange relationship between The Mayor and me. I thought carrot, but had no specific reason, which is sometimes the most Fruitloop reason of all.

By the end, we both agreed it had been a more serious Peeling Potatoes, but he survived intermediate Fruitloop University. He did not get a certificate yet. He has to make it through advanced first. Last week he failed because he overthought everything. This week he progressed. Next week, maybe, if he does not analyze the unicorn into a nervous breakdown, he may be eligible for certification.

And because Peeling Potatoes is holy sacred ground, we also agreed that next week it does not get cancelled. It may move. It may happen at five in the morning. But it happens.

That is the routine.

Chaos, cats, tea, unicorns, laundry, loyalty, guilt, parks, potatoes, and The Mayor trying to pass Fruitloop University without being eaten alive by his own overthinking.

Congratulations, Mr Mayor. Intermediate level completed.

No certificate yet.