Maria and Jose

Maria and Jose are the maid and butler in our home. Yes, we have a maid and a butler! Can you believe it! What a luxury! Due to the boys' lack of discipline, overabundance of procrastination, and just plain laziness Maria aka Mom and Jose aka Dad have often been summoned. Unfortunately (really it's fortunate) for them Maria and Jose, have been on vacation for a while. Today however, the boys could feel their clean laundry piles waiting for them all the way at school and I knew the silent cries (we all know those "silent" cries) would soon be heard. So, when I picked them up from school I said, "you guys have clean clothes on the table at home and you have thirty minutes from the time you walk through the door to get them and put them away. I mean put away in the dresser where they belong, not on the floor next to the dresser. If it's not done Maria would be happy to do it, but she will charge $5.00 to put your laundry away." Joel replied, "MAN, that's expensive!" I said, "that's right! You can do it right away, or Maria will be happy to do it for you and you can pay her." Ummm, their clothes were put away pretty quickly! They also have the bad habit of putting clothes in their dirty laundry basket that haven't been worn so they don't have to put them away or because they take them out and don't want to put them back. I informed them there would be a fine for this from now on. We'll see if it works!