#steve shuts the wifi off and says: i dunno whats wrong but the router is under all your crap on the stairs so maybe something happened to it

[livwritesstuff]

Steve is fighting a losing battle.

He’s fighting it regardless – there's something kind of courageous about that, he thinks.

Or maybe it’s just stupid.

Steve doesn’t care, he’s gonna fight it anyway.

The battle involves the stairs – the landing, to be specific, and the way it has become an unofficial final resting place for so much of his daughters' shit.

So much.

He loves his children. He loves them more than anything, actually.

Still, they drive him goddamn insane sometimes. They just – they’re teenagers, right? So they’re spending all their time holed up in their rooms which, fine, sure, whatever, that’s normal enough. But why, then, is their stuff all over Steve’s house?

Steve isn’t the kind of guy who needs the house spotless, or whatever, but he could do without it looking like a tornado-stricken Walmart.

Hair dryers and bottles of nail polish in the living room, Hazel’s makeup all over the kitchen counter, phone chargers and headphones all over the bathroom, and – Jesus Christ – the sweatshirts. Between his three daughters every single surface in his house has a discarded sweatshirt on it, and it’s not like he can do anything about it because he has no goddamn clue which ones belong to which kid and guessing wrong leads to World War-level fighting.

His solution: he’ll just leave all their stuff on the landing so as they head upstairs to barricade themselves in their rooms, they’ll see it and take it up with them.

The problem with his solution: the girls (who he loves so much) just step right over the mess and continue on their way.

“Why the hell am I stepping on fucking hairbrushes going down the stairs?” Eddie asks him one day.

“You wouldn’t be if your children would just bring their shit up to their rooms,” Steve replies drily.

Later, when the girls get home from school, Robbie passes through the kitchen where Steve and Eddie are sitting at the counter.

“Hello, my darling daughter,” Eddie says, “How was your day today?”

“Fine,” she replies, not taking her eyes off her phone as she heads for the stairs just like she always does.

“Robbie,” Steve says, “I left your books on the stairs. Please take them up with you.”

“Uh-huh,” she mumbles, but as she approaches the books it becomes evident that she would be doing no such thing.

“Robbie,” he calls, “Amelia Robin.”

The only response he gets is the sound of her bedroom door closing.

“I’m listing all this shit on eBay – swear to god,” he tells Eddie as he waves a hand loosely in Robbie’s direction in a can you believe this shit kind of gesture.

Eddie replies, “Maybe list her too while you’re at it.”