Uncle Bobbys Tongue-in-Cheek Guide to Taming Your Preseason Panic Syndrome
Dear Uncle Bobby, Summer hasn’t even officially started and I already feel behind. My house is a mess, the kids are bored, my fridge is full of random condiments, and I swear I’ve heard “Can we go somewhere?” 27 times this week. Is this just how summer works now?
Exhausted by June,,
Chaos in Cargo Shorts
Oh, Chaos, bless your overambitious heart and your half-empty bottle of ranch dressing. You’ve stumbled into what experts (me) refer to as “Preseason Panic Syndrome.” See, summer doesn’t arrive like a gentle breeze. No, it kicks the door in wearing flip-flops, dragging a Bluetooth speaker, and yelling, “What’s for lunch?” before breakfast is even over. Your mistake? You tried to prepare. You made a list. Bought sunscreen. Maybe even stocked up on juice boxes and freezer pops. And yet — here you are, five days in and already Googling “quietest places on Earth.” The kids? They’ve entered chaos mode. They’re not bored — they’re weaponizing boredom. Every room is a disaster. The living room smells like chlorine and betrayal. Someone’s always wet for no reason. Your fridge is a museum of expired ambition. Three kinds of mustard. A rogue yogurt. Seventeen string cheeses that no one claims. And still — still — no one can find a snack.
Uncle Bobby’s advice? Give up. Lower expectations. Let the living room become a beach towel graveyard. Declare one drawer in the fridge “summer storage” and fill it with whatever. Learn to say, “We’ll see,” in six different tones to delay decisions indefinitely. And when they ask, “Can we go somewhere?” tell them, “We already did. It was called Tuesday. You missed it.” Because summer’s not about order, Chaos. It’s about survival. About letting go. About wearing swim trunks to the grocery store and eating cold hot dogs over the sink. Embrace it. You're not behind. You're just ahead of everyone else in realizing there’s no such thing as ahead anymore.
– Uncle Bobby