a long somewhat cranky story

Last week my mom called to tell me that she was planning a party to celebrate my dad's 86th birthday on Sunday night. She asked me to invite my kids and said she would be cutting up fruit and pastries to serve and I should buy my dad one of those short-sleeved button up shirts like the kind you wear in Hawaii in a size 2XL and we could Skype with Jessie and her family so they could be part of the get-together.

I told my kids about the party, and as instructed, on Saturday, bought a shirt for my dad. Earlier that day, while Jack and I were at the rental house, my mom called and asked if she could come to my house to cut up the fruit so my dad wouldn't see her doing it and spoil the surprise party. I said okay, and came home later to find all kinds of berries and melons on my counter along with mom's knives and cutting board and strawberry cleaner. Also, a somewhat sticky kitchen floor. It seemed clear to me that mom had already cut up fruit, but there was still a bunch of fruit in my kitchen so I called and asked her what she wanted me to do with all of that fruit.

She said that she'd already cut up the fruit she needed, apologized for leaving the mess in my kitchen, and told me that since dad loves my berry pies that maybe I should make him some pie for his birthday with all of the leftover berries.

I'd thought about making a pie for my dad for his birthday before mom told me to buy him a shirt. My pie recipe calls for frozen berries (the frozen berries help the pie filling set up), but since I'm the obedient sort, I went ahead and baked pies on Sunday, using the frozen berries in my freezer, and served the leftover fruit with dinner that night.

After dinner, we all headed over to my parent's house where we crowded into the living room with my brothers, their families, my dad's brother and sister-in-law, and then later we crowded into my mom's over-filled office (think Hoarders) so we could Skype with Jessie's family.

On Monday night after work, I came into the house, walked into the kitchen and saw pie spilled down the front of one of my white cupboards and in a heap on the floor and tracked across the kitchen, through the dining room, and down the stairs. I asked Jack if he knew how it got there and he said the drummer has told him he didn't know where it came from and Jack didn't either so it must have been Jr because the shoe prints on the steps looked like the same shape as Jr's shoes.

Jr called later and told me he'd seen it too but didn't know where it came from and he thought the prints going down the steps were blood from a scratch on one of the cats' bellies and I should look at that belly to see if the cat needed to see the vet.

Does anybody see anything wrong with this story besides me?

First, the cat is okay, it's just a scratch.

The spots on the steps were pie. I know that because I scrubbed out the raspberry seeds.

I don't even care about solving the mystery of who spilled the pie and how there could be pie everywhere but no pie plate broken on the floor or in the trash.

I just want to understand why four adults live in my house and we all saw the pie mess and the first three that saw it didn't wipe it up.

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Yeah, it's been several days and I'm still a little cranky about it.