Day 97: War of the Woodards

Lesser historians believe that the war began on the first of August, 2017.  In reality, the open shots were fired the night before, in a skirmish so mild that, initially, it didn't register as the open salvos in an epic conflict.

Pre-War, the family at peace.

Alas, such peace was to be short lived.

It is recorded that Monday, July 31st, the matriarch of the Woodard family declared cheerfully that tomorrow would be room cleaning day.  The children responded with little to no alarm, a reaction that--at the time--the matriarch regarded positively.  Little did she know that this was a black ops tactic, designed to throw her off her guard.

So it was that, on August 1st, the very next day, she was completely unprepared for the shit storm that descended when she once more broached the "room cleaning" front.

For three days the family engaged in direct military action, from mild skirmishes up to pitched battle.  During the conflict the matriarch sustained damages such as bruising, bite marks, and a sudden onset of the desire to drink herself into a coma.  The children lost most of their screen time and spent many hours entrenched in their emotional foxholes, where they drowned in self-inflicted misery.

Negotiations were attempted, but resolved nothing.  The children staunchly declared that for liberty, freedom, and--above all--fairness, they would never yield in the war.  The Matriarch leveled her famous quote in response:

Oh, yeah, I'm so unfair.  I only take care of you, feed you, clothe you, keep you from running into traffic, and clean this whole damn house.  How dare I ask you to clean up 80 sq ft filled with nothing but your own personal shit? 

When the youngest of the children announced that this was obvious sarcasm, negotiations were completely derailed and all attempts at reconciliation were abandoned.

Not til Friday, August 4th, was a tentative peace declared.  A third party suggested a piecemeal attempt at cleaning the rooms, and the matriarch--with her resources exhausted and an ever growing conviction that she was going to need valium to survive this week--acceded to a trial process.  The children attempted to circumvent the agreed upon terms several times, by first simply moving everything from the area they were supposed to be cleaning into another area that was not yet needing to be cleaned, and then later by crying and declaring they "could not" and would the matriarch please not relent and allow them to live in squalor.  The matriarch held firm, however, and by noon that Friday the process of cleaning had at last begun.

The children came through the conflict relatively unscathed, and in fact were arming for a new war mere moments later.

The matriarch is seriously considering running away and joining the circus.