Have you ever had one of those days when you awakened to the sound of the cat choking up a hairball and you step out of bed, flashlight at the ready, and sure enough there are three chunks of something on the floor you have to clean up. You get that taken care of and on your way to the bathroom you realize that there are big brown spots of grease on your beautiful blue bedspread, thrown there by a recently over-lubricated ceiling fan above the bed. Which makes you realize that the arc of grease on the bed must be matched by a similar arc of grease on the carpet. You step around to the foot of the bed and confirm.
So you trek downstairs to get paper towels for blotting and baking soda for absorbing only to return to the same bedroom now housing a large ladder which stands directly on the area of carpet you need to treat. Your well-meaning husband has tried to scrub the grease out of the bedspread with paper towels, so now you have grease smears instead of grease spots plus greasy paper towels on the edge of the bed.
You realize the bedspread now belongs to Goodwill so you turn your attention to the carpet. After convincing your husband to first let you treat the carpet instead of let him work on removing the excess grease from the fan without a plan, you sit on the carpet and begin blotting. The focus on smaller areas is actually helpful – it keeps you from yelling at your husband, it gets up a little bit of grease, and pouring baking soda over the spots feels like the beginning of treating the situation.
Then you go to the laundry room for one final attempt at spot treating the handmade quilt that was on top of the bedspread and touched by the arc. While rubbing spot treatment on the stains you hear the faint but steady sound of water dripping onto the ceiling above you from somewhere above that. The guest bathroom. Which currently has a guest in it taking a shower. The same guest who has to watch TV or play video games on a 2′ screen with horrible sound borrowed from our office upstairs because the big screen TV died the day before they arrived.
Looks like it’s going to be a long summer with frequent dips into the home repair pool.
Kim Robinson is an author living in Austin, TX. She and her husband have six children and fourteen grandchildren and enjoy spending time with family. Passionate about parenting, she writes and speaks about a variety of issues facing parents and professionals dealing with teenagers in crisis. She enjoys speaking at retreats and to various organizations.
Kim's debut novel, Chased by Grace - A Story of Survival, is available now.