To Register, Clean and Destroy...Myself.

On Friday I had a plan. After I dropped WC off at preschool I would drop CJ off at my moms and on the way back home stop and purchase the Hoover Steamvac carpet cleaner I'd planning on getting for a couple months. Then stop off at the school and register WC for kindergarten this August then go home put together the steamvac and rock-n-roll. It took a half an hour to get WC out of the house (which isn't bad for him). Slightly behind where I'd hoped to be- not bad. Everything went according to plan- I even got in and out of the Walmart in under 10 minutes. It's been a number of years since I'd been in a school. When I was kid you just pulled the door open and walked on in. There was a sign posted asking visitors to please see the secretary. In order to get into the elementary school on Friday I had to hold my drivers license up to a camera to be permitted into the office. You do not get to bypass go or collect two hundred dollars. You go straight to the office and damn it they know who you are when you get there. I'm surprised a retinal scan or body cavity search wasnt required. This should make me feel good about the safety where my child will be attending- and it does. It also saddens me that this is the point the world has come to...even in the small towns. Only one minor snaffu in the registration process- I only have the mothers copy of the birth certificate they give you in the hospital. I'd never sent off for the one with the state seal & this is required. But they allowed me to register him as long as I produce this document in August. I also inquired about the after school program there run by the YMCA. I was told to contact YMCA directly and I should do it that very day because there might already be a waiting list. Added contact YMCA on my to-do list. I plan on not needing the after school program for very long, hopefully only through the end of the calendar year. At home I called the local YMCA they told me to call another YMCA & they told me I would have to go back to the school between 2-6 to register him in person. Add go back to the school to my to-do list. First thing I did was pull down the drapes and throw them in the washer (they get washed about twice a year). Now to the task at hand of assembling the steamvac. That was done without too much hassle. Then I had the arduous task of picking everything up off the carpet. Moved as much as I could off the carpet- pushed the couch all the back (plan was to move it forward and clean the back part of the room after), was able to move one recliner to the kitchen and the other I just had to push back next to the couch. I'd borrowed my friends steamvac the year before to clean before CJ's birthday party so this shampoo was long overdue between the kids the senile feline. I'm not a neat freak- but am totally ashamed of how bad this carpet looked- nasty w/ a capital N. The vomit stain of strawberry milk was my nemesis. When the full tank signal popped up I wasnt anywhere close to being half done with this one room. I use this opportunity to remove the drapes from the washer and put them in the dryer. I remove the collection tank from the machine and carry it to the back door to dump into the yard. Somehow, someway I fumble the tank. I drop it. In slow motion it hits the floor...the lid pops off. I'm watching the most disgusting gallon of water roll across my kitchen floor, splatter all on me, cover Jay's beloved birkenstocks...My mind is racing, I need to soak this up and paper towels would be no match. Then I see the bath mat in the laundry room floor waiting to be washed. I grab it and toss it onto the water that is running towards the stuff I'd moved from the living room into the kitchen. This buys me enough time to grab a couple towels. All I can think is that I just destroyed Jay's birkenstocks and the gallon of sludge that came out of living room carpet is on the kitchen floor. I empty the water out of them and lay them out to dry. The leather will never look the same again. All I can do is refill the clean water tank and finish the job. After I ran the next gallon on the living room I took a break for lunch. I put my food in the microwave and set about rehanging the drapes. While I ate my leftovers I read the owners manual. When I reached the section about how to clean out the hood if debris gets trapped in there and it stated to pour a cup or two of clean water on a hard floor surface and suck it up to wash the debris away...it dawned on me. Dummy- you could have use the steamvac itself to suck up the dirty water spilled all over the floor. Sometimes I wonder about me. After lunch I worked on the hallway and back up into the living room. I ended up cleaning the living room carpet three times then because the manual suggested rinsing the carpet (I'd never done that before) I ran a clean water minus the soap over the living room carpet. I didnt do the hall just to see if I notice a difference. Jay called and I reluctantly confessed the possible demise of his favorite sandal but he was optimistic they would still be fine, even if the color of the leather was now different. While cleaning the carpet I'd been so caught up in the spots that I didnt think were coming out enough that I failed to notice how well the carpet as a whole looked- which I saw from the kitchen while talking with Jay. Seemed like an interesting parallel about life. When I'm focusing on only the one or two negative things I miss out on how nice the whole picture is.

 

My initial plan was to clean all the carpets- the bedrooms too. But at this point it was three o'clock and I still needed to get back to the school to check on the after school program. I had started cleaning at about 10 that morning with only the one small break to eat. Exhausted I gave up. And I still had to clean the cleaner itself. I'm not a neat freak but I do have to clean my cleaning equipment. When I read the owners manual and discovered I could remove the rotating bristles from the bottom of the steamvac and clean them- I've never been so happy. I disassemble the cleaner, flip the whole thing over and remove the row of brushes- disappointed that I could not get them as clean as they were fresh out the box but had to let it go. At some point that day I'd pulled a muscle in my back and didnt notice until I was getting ready to leave and pick up WC, go to the school for the after school program registration. We werent there five minutes he found someone he knew- while I filled out the paperwork he was off. I found him playing with a ball. He was perturbed that some kid there thought he was a baby. I called mom to see if they would kindly bring CJ to me but it seemed they had to go to the funeral home- so off we went to pick up CJ. And this was just the beginning of the weekend.