Moving is the Worst.
If you ever want to test your limits, your marriage, or your pain threshold as a parent, move. Pack up an entire house — every last crayon and sippy cup and random tchotchke— carefully into boxes, while your little children run circles around you, yelling and screaming, shooting each other with Star Wars laser guns, singing Moana’s “Your Welcome!” at the top of their lungs, with a dog in the background, howling at the moon.
If you’re a true masochist, (earmuffs, Martha Stewart) move to a house that’s not completely finished. As in, still requires construction after you’ve moved your life into it. Want to go all the way? Move into a house without a kitchen. Just drywall. No cabinets, no counters, no appliances. Not even a working light in the pantry. Just a big, gaping hole in the center of your home where a kitchen should sit, but doesn’t. Oh, and remember those two little dragons I mentioned earlier? Now figure out how to feed them three+ meals a day. And not. Go. Insane.
I imagine if game developers wanted to make the next popular SIMS-style life simulation game, they could take a page from my book over the last 6 weeks:
Character: Exhausted mom
Outfit: Disheveled. Missing her bra because she can’t find a single one; they’re in a yet-unopened box somewhere. Inappropriate footwear worn for task at hand. Badly chipped mani. Coffee breath.
Setting: House under construction, half-open boxes create a maze everywhere, dust, dangerous tools left out, exposed wiring jutting from walls.
Task: Get her through the day without having her self-destruct. She must forage to feed her children, and keep them out of harm’s way. (Bonus if you save them from stepping on a rusty nail and avoid the possibility of panicking all the way to the after-hours children’s urgent care for a tetanus shot.) She must not step in the dog poop that’s been dropped in piles throughout the house, she must unpack boxes for points. If she can find food to sustain herself, her strength increases, and she can even carry things to the attic. (Score!) If she can’t, she will slow down and drown beneath crinkled packing paper. Distractions such as conference calls occur, and she must complete them without panicking when a crisis occurs, such as counter tops being delivered that have been cut incorrectly, or smoke detectors erroneously going off.
Version two (in beta) involves a mother in a crowded Costco on a Saturday, with two hungry children in tow. She must navigate the crowds to reach the sample stations before a meltdown occurs, or before she’s distracted by a sale on kids pajamas. Highest score gets to leave without having to stand in the receipt-security line.
