If a team of forensic scientists ever came to my house with swabs, they would find a thousand blood samples. Right now there’s a pool of dried blood on my front steps that I can’t wash away. We’ve got blood stains on nearly every sheet and pillowcase in the house. Blood stains on shirts and pants. Blood stains on gloves (paging OJ). Blood drops on the floor, the walls, and probably the ceiling.

There are days it looks like Freddy Krueger lives here.

But we’re not a family of killers, cutters, or slashers. We’re just a family that gets a ridiculous number of bloody noses. My two oldest boys don’t just get those slow-leaking bloody noses. There are days they walk in the door covered with blood from the waist up.

It happened just the other day. I was in the basement when Tommy came home. I heard the front door open violently, followed by an urgent thump, thump, thump, and another door slamming. When I went to investigate, I saw the trail of blood. It was all over the living room floor, the hallway floor, on two doors, and every wall in between.

I knocked on the bathroom door. “Everything OK in there?” I asked.

“Yup,” he replied. “No problem. Just a bloody nose.”

We’re very ho-hum about those now. We’ve had so many bloody noses over the last ten years or so, the boys are able to stop the bleeding themselves. Usually the only reason I find out they had one is because I find the trail of blood they neglected to clean up. Sometimes I find the trail while it’s still wet. Other times I don’t see it for a few days. Still other days the gigantic pile of bloody Kleenex in the bathroom garbage can is the only clue.

Even though I clean the house every week, I’m absolutely positive there are stains somewhere in this house that I haven’t found yet. I know how incredibly gross that sounds, but for some reason, it doesn’t really bother me. My little brother used to get bloody noses all the time when he was a kid, and he was very ho-hum about them too. He grew out of it eventually. I’m sure my boys will grow out of it too.

In the meantime, I can’t invite any cops over to the house.

They know a crime scene when they see one.