Where did I put those parents?

Image by Mandajuice via Flickr

It wasn’t that he didn’t understand so much as that he just couldn’t think about it. Whenever he tried his mind became either completely blank or a mass of noise and scribble and chaos. Either way, the whole subject of housework was always problematic for him. Not that he expected anyone else to do it, well maybe he wouldn’t have minded, to be honest, but as he’d been on his own since hiding his parents, he had no one else who could do it. Theoretically, he could have hired someone but that would have meant earning some money and he hadn’t really worked that out yet either.

His parents’ money was running out fast, unless they had more hidden away somewhere, but if they did he couldn’t think of a way to find it. Asking them was out of the question of course as he’d forgotten where he’d hidden them. All he knew was that he’d hidden them ‘somewhere safe’, that old chestnut.

He’d tried the obvious places, behind the sofa, under the bed, in the shed, in the garage, in the kitchen drawer. He tried places that weren’t at all obvious, like the bathroom cabinet, his pencil case, his jacket pocket, the sugar bowl, the hamster cage and his old shoes under the bed.

All of this had got him nowhere. It had been 9 months now since he’d hidden them. He was a little bit worried about them, obviously, but mainly, he was worried about himself. How was he going to pay the mortgage when the cash ran out?  How was he going to get the house clean, get himself clean, his clothes washed? How was he going to clean up his act so that he could invite someone round or have a chance of meeting someone? He had no clue.

Although his parents were miniature parents, it didn’t mean he relied on them any less. He said to himself that he’d hidden them but in reality they were perfectly able to unhide themselves and find him, they were just choosing not to.

They were letting him use his initiative, something they’d banged on about for years. They may have been miniature but as far as he could tell they seemed to be just as big a pain in the arse as normal sized parents.