Flippin’ water bottles got me like…

It was really amazing back around Memorial Day. It was really cute when my kids finally nailed it after a bajillion tries post-Memorial Day. It started to wear on me juuuuuuust a smidge around June. I was able to ignore it for most of July with a cocktail in my hand on the beach, but here we are at the end of August, and good LAWD! my nerves are completely shot and I’m shooing the kids out the door for school – not because I’ve been sweating since June; not because I find Nerf bullets in every nook and cranny of my house; and, not because my kids have snacked me to death for the last three months.

I’m literally undone by a flippin’ (bleep! bleep, bleep!) water bottle flip.

I THINK I can blame that kid from Ardrey Kell who is now a YouTube sensation, but I am not sure. I am too hot and too tired to research who actually started the phenomenon – plus the thought of actually CHOOSING to watch someone do it on YouTube while I researched it sends me over the edge. All I know is that this water bottle flip is like a Gremlin chasing me on the muggiest of Charlotte days – everywhere I go the constant thump, thump, AWWWWWWWW! thump, thump, AWWWWWWW!, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, AWWWWWWWW! follows me.

There are no boundaries to it. It has no gender or age bias; it has no socioeconomic favorites; it knows neither time nor day, nor does it care about location. My kids, my kids’ friends, my kids’ friends’ friends, my kids’ friends’ friends’ friends, EVERY. SINGLE. KID. in Charlotte is flippin’ water bottles (and not very well, mind you – there’s a lot of thumpin’ going on).

Why couldn’t that kid at Ardrey Kell have flipped dirty underwear into the washing machine? Plastic cups into the dishwasher? Dirty cleats into the shoe bin? ANYTHING besides trash that barely makes it to the recycle bin as it is? He’s literally given my kids as an excuse to SAVE MORE TRASH, and trust me, my kids need no more reasons to hoard things. They’re pretty much experts as it is.

We’ve got half-(or is it a quarter?) filled water bottles all on any patch of carpet that isn’t already taken by a Nerf bullet. Actually, make that any kind of bottle – Gatorade, Powerade (filled with BLUE Powerade!!!), Diet Coke – they’re all players in this sick, sick game. My recycling bin is light as a feather, but my head is heavy with…headache.

I can tell I’m not alone. Just last weekend, I saw a grown man stop talking to another grown man mid-sentence to scream at group of kids: STOP FLIPPING WATER BOTTLES!…and not one parent corrected him (we all silently cheered). Another guy in that same group told us his kids were flippin’ water bottles on ceiling fans…just for the challenge.

We’re coming unglued, Smarty Charlotte, and I’m not sure the school year can even save us from a flippin’ water bottle flip. I feel for our teachers and cafeteria workers now more than ever before (and I’m placing bets as to what comes first: the no-more-flippin’ letter or the lice letter – it’s really a toss up…no pun intended). I thought my first order of business when the kids went back to school was to send 999,999 of our 1,000,000 stuffed animals to a “better place,” but now I’m thinking I’ll be ridding our house of plastic. Wish me luck.