My Bar Stools... A Metaphor for Life

Not the kind of bar stools at a real bar. (If only...) But the kind that appear at most suburban homes' breakfast bar/buffet/homework center/clutter catching surface.

I got my two bar stools at a discount furniture store.  They were in the very back, in the scratch and dent section.  I love to shop there.  Why?  Because I have children!

By design, they are the stylish black kind you can find in a Crate and Barrel catalog.  But I do not have a Crate and Barrel life.

The bar stools were marred and boogered before I bought them.  In fact, that's why I bought them.  In addition to the price, $20 for both.  I knew that these would be the landing spots for my kids in the most hurried moments of our busy life.  (I actually got this idea from my sister, who had similar bar stools in her otherwise Martha Stewart home when her kids were small.)

We generally try to eat family dinners in the dining room.  But there are those occasions when a few bites at the bar on paper plates will have to do for now.  Food flies everywhere.  Dog drool is deposited along the edges of the chairs as Sadie searches for stray morsels.  (OK, I'll stop blaming the kids and dogs for everything.  I contribute to the slopiness at the bar a plenty.)

I like to think I'm giving this suburban motherhood thing a good go.  From a distance, I think it looks about right (by current cultural standards, which I know in my heart of hearts are generally ridiculous).  But, like the bar stools, if you take a closer look, life is messy and crusted with remnants of milk laughed out the nose, slowly developing manners, and other unsightly but fun and memorable moments.