Joann is taking the morning to clean the carpets in the studio.
"Its a good thing we're putting in a rug." She says. "Cause this sh*t isn't coming out."
Now before you get all concerned that I'm a gross slob writing in his own filth, I have to take you back in time a bit.
First, the studio has only been a studio for the last two years. Prior to this, it was the den (and I do mean den) of a teenage boy. And anyone who has ever lived with a boy from the ages of 12 to 27 can testify handily that they are disgusting creatures. Out of their pores comes a nasty mixture of hormones, stink spray, and some kind of gooey substance that makes everything much stickier than it has any right to be. Taylor was clearly no exception to that rule. Joann was very diligent about scouring his room every few months, but it took three bottles of bleach and two coats of paint before the room stopped feeling like an underground crypt.
Yet, to blame Taylor, is entirely unfair. Sort of. You see, a few years ago, I had gotten a really nice bonus from my day job and we decided to replace the gross carpet with a lamanent flooring. The decision was made (by me) not to replace the gross carpet in the boys' rooms.
Why, you ask?
Cause our boys, though lovely, wonderful, brilliant, and kind, are, to say it nicely . . . kind of loud.
And hardwood floors, though beautiful, turn little houses into echo chambers. Every spoken word, every step, even the sound of Rianna's off key howling leaking from a pair of earbuds, bangs off the floor and under the doors and down the hall and into the bathroom and out into space and back down onto the exact spot I decided to take a nap in.
"We'll get to their rooms after they move out." I convinced my wife. Sort of.
But that doesn't clearly explain why the carpets got so gross in the first place.
Well, the reason why the carpets got so gross is because when we were picking them out we/I decided to go with the super ultimate cheap stuff. The really really really cheap stuff. The kind of stuff that was so cheap the company had to actually pay us money to put it in.
Khaki beige with no under padding, no extra scotch guard, kind of like construction paper nailed to a concrete floor. And that sh*t stains easily. I've seen deep black stains appear after spilling french mineral water.
But I knew all this ahead of time and still opted for it.
Why, you ask? Cause Josh doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who goes for the cheap stuff. He's reasonable with his money, but not frugal. He likes good wine, expensive toys and always finds a way to get his wife jewelry at christmas time.
But here's one thing that Josh really likes to do;
He likes to think ahead. He doesn't give a crap about the moment. As far as he is concerned, the current moment is just the net effect of everything that has occurred previously. He believes you can't really do anything about the now. You can't fix the now, you can't break the now, you can't do anything with the now but hate it, enjoy it, or sleep through it.
And because he wants to sit back and enjoy the now, he spends a lot of time thinking ahead to the next now.
So eight years ago, sitting in the homebuilders office with a thick stack of samples and a very pregnant wife by his side, Josh made a decision.
You see, there was going to be a baby born, and babies are gross. They are sticky and smelly, they vomit all the time and have no fear of rubbing their poo poo into any surface within reach. They find no greater joy than to throw spaghetti at every wall and spray copious amounts of urine in any room any chance they get.
Josh knew this.
And Josh also knew that because of this, no matter what carpet they ordered, it was going to be a gooey sticky dirt trap in just a few years time.
He knew this because he was thinking ahead.
Now flash forward and most of the carpet has been replaced. (Aha, bingo) and yet the victory is only partial because Josh had no way of knowing what a gross teenage boy could do to an incredibly cheap carpet, or that by the time he was about to turn thirty seven, he was going to be physically incapable of the kind of back breaking work it takes to replace carpets and that he wasn't going to be willing to throw away his hard earned savings on paying someone else to do it, and now his wife hates him just a little bit for going with such a crappy option.
That's not true.
She hates him for lots of other things as well.
She especially hates him as she spends all monday morning failing to eradicate a big black stain of unknown origin from the floor of the studio.
She hates him a little less for letting her get a rug.
But you can all breathe easy.
Cause he's already picked out her christmas present.
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