The Kitchen Madonna is sponsoring a “Name This Apron Contest.“

I am here to tell you that I could have used this apron this morning. I’d have named it “Mama on the Warpath.”

Now, I am well aware that it is my vocation to be a Mom and a Homemaker. And this vocation implies that I will be doing many things for my family, all day long–cooking, laundry, cleaning, errands, personal taxi service–you know the drill. I’m OK with all that. I enjoy some of it (especially the cooking part).

It’s the short-notice stuff that gets me. I swear they all think that my motto is “I plan ahead, so you don’t have to.” This morning I needed one of those signs that read “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”

Within the first half-hour of being awake, I was informed that I had to take a twenty-minute-each-way field trip to the Boy Scout Council office to get a camping permit stamped. This permit had been sitting in my husband’s briefcase for a couple of weeks, but it had to be done today, because the camping trip is tomorrow.

I was a little less calm when Big Brother asked me where his black jeans were, because he had to wear black clothing to school today for stage crew. He asked me this question 45 minutes before his bus time. The jeans were in the washer–clean, but not yet dry. (They were still a little damp when he put them on and rushed out the door. Mildewed underwear is not out of the question.)

But the icing on the cake came when Big Brother wandered downstairs after his shower and saw me closing up his lunchbox. “I don’t need a lunch today, Mom. We’re having pizza at school for stage crew.” So I made that tuna hoagie for nothing. He couldn’t tell me before his shower that he didn’t need lunch? He’s well aware that I make lunches while he’s in the shower.

So by the time I realized that I was having a tuna hoagie for lunch today, I was definitely Mama on the Warpath. If I were wearing the apron pictured above, I’d need a heavy-duty rosary in one pocket, and an MP3 player loaded with some martial music in the other. Sousa, anyone?

The good thing is that when I am Mama on the Warpath I can be extraordinarily efficient about getting things done. Mama’s got to channel that anger into something positive, after all.