Well, it�s all over but the shouting. If there�s to be any, that is. Inspection�s done, now we get to wait and see if there are any repercussions.

What a couple of days we�ve had. Money was spent. Blood was shed and tears were cried. Money was spent again. Sweat poured out of every orifice continually. Money was spent again. And again. Cats were traumatized, as was a certain stinkingly lazy child. Sleep was missed, classes were skipped, a perfect GPA was marred. It was just not pretty, folks.

Turns out patching a carpet ain�t as easy as the Reader�s Digest Complete Do-It-Yourself Manual would like to have you believe. Hell, even if it turns out well, apparently a new patch needs time to wear before it blends in perfectly with the surrounding carpet. I don�t know what happens over time if the patch turns out not-so-well, but I can tell you with complete authority that stomping on it for twenty minutes with an athletic-shoe-covered foot will not cause it to become invisible. Nor will running a hot iron over it, stacking books on top of it, nor swearing and spitting upon it in a fit of rage.

A $15 throw rug from the Wal-Mart, however, will. Along with some creative furniture rearranging, and the addition of a second $15 rug to make the first rug look less out of place.

That�s basically how every fucking thing went. The dings and dents in the Evil Childe�s wall which we were planning to spackle? Turned out upon closer inspection to be actual holes, which were simply not fixable considering the time and money and skill restraints we�ve got going on over here. I never expected Metallica would prove useful in averting landlord trouble�quite the contrary, in fact�but a poster bearing their likeness turned out to be the perfect decor-matching cover-up for wall damage in a teenager�s room.

We spent way too much money on rugs, tools, storage bins, cleaning supplies, a new cat carrier, take-out food, and extra gas for me to take the Prince to work so I could keep the car to go out and spend even more money on tools and supplies.

We managed to hide, clean or fix most of the damage, except for the big blue stain in the middle of Evil Childe�s floor that is too oddly positioned to plausibly hide with furniture or rugs; and the absolutely evil cat-pee smell in her closet which suddenly became noticeable after we cleaned up the several-foot depth of junk from the closet floor�junk which had apparently been doing a terrific job of blocking the odor from rising to nostril level prior to its removal. Several rounds of steam cleaning and deodorizing didn�t eradicate the smell completely, though hopefully it will smell ok when completely dry. Fortunately for our immediate purposes of passing the inspection, the industrial-strength chemicals I used to clean the adjoining bathroom provided a measure of camouflage and olfactory distraction.

The closet was bad enough, but I am sure I will have nightmares about the state of that child�s bathroom for the rest of my days. Yes, I know that a good mother, a SMART mother would have gone in there on a regular basis to check the cleanliness level; but it was just such a pain in the ass to wade through her messy room and closet in order to get to it that I contented myself with peering in from a distance occasionally before issuing the Evil One her cleaning orders. Upon rechecking later from afar I could tell that she never did a very good job of cleaning it, so I figured it was probably a little grungy.

But oh, how naive can a mother be? This bathroom was beyond disgusting. It was so far beyond disgusting that if you turned your gaze backwards, disgusting would be a tiny little rose-colored spot on the distant horizon. It was so filthy that even the Prince was revolted, and he couldn�t care less if I EVER cleaned ours. (I still do, though not as regularly as I should.) The worst gas-station bathroom I have ever been in (Gainesville, FL, 1996) couldn�t hold a shit-encrusted candle to the mess I cleaned up Wednesday night. There were germs the size of rat terriers in there. I can�t believe my child actually sat her naked ass down in all that grime to do her business. I can�t believe her BOYFRIEND did. Wasn�t he afraid something would jump up out of the muck and bite off his wiener?

Well, it sparkles like the motherfucking sun in there now, by god. Now that I�ve got it clean, I just want to cover everything with those sanitized-for-your-protection paper strips, lock it up tight and never let that little hoglet of mine use it again; except that it would mean she�d be doing all her filthy business in MY bathroom, and I ain�t having it. I�m not sitting this lily-white ass down in no primordial ooze when I gotta make with the ones and twos.

Apparently my laissez-faire parenting policy in regards to room-cleaning is not working out so hot. It seems the time is ripe to formally introduce the child to the concept of weekly bathroom cleaning, with weekend privileges contingent upon passing Mom�s white glove inspection.

Speaking of which, the Evil One cracks my shit up sometimes. Anyone who has been reading me awhile has heard me lament on many occasions my disorganization and lack of housekeeping skills. But when I try to get my kid to do a better than half-assed job on any cleaning task, the first thing she shrieks at me is �But I�m not YOU! Stop trying to turn me into a clean freak!� It�s pretty bad that even with having practically no standards at all I�ve still managed to set the bar too high for her by insisting that she not live in the midst of raw sewage.

Anyway, we worked like mangy dogs for two days. I wound up skipping my drawing class on Wednesday, for which my final grade will probably be lowered because the teacher is a total cunt about attendance. But I needed to keep the car, and being as how the Prince didn�t get to bed until after 2 a.m. Tuesday night, I couldn�t in good conscience wake him back up at 5:30 to catch the train, now could I? So I took him to work, and spent the next two hours driving around Deerfield due to traffic problems caused by a gas main break a little over a block from where the Prince works, and I worried about him being blown up, and worried about school and getting thrown out of our place, and cried for awhile, and then finally got myself on the right highway to head back to town just in time for my afternoon class, which I couldn�t skip because THIS teacher is a total cunt about project deadlines�she won�t accept any work after the due date.

Thursday I called off my morning class, and kept the Evil Childe home from school, and we snuck the cats out to the car in their carriers under cover of darkness at six a.m. And there they remained for much of the day. (It was a chilly enough day that there were no worries about overheating, and even so I checked on them every half hour or so when we were home, and the Evil One accompanied me to school in the afternoon and waited in the car so the cats wouldn�t be left alone in the car for three hours.) They were some pissed off kittycats, and refused to eat or drink anything while in captivity. I know it wasn�t the best solution and I felt bad for doing it, but we really had no other choice. We couldn�t take them to a kennel because their shots aren�t current, and we literally had no where else for them to go. They don�t seem any worse for the wear, but I swear I saw one of them kiss the ground when we let them back in the apartment yesterday after the inspection.

The inspection finally came to pass late yesterday afternoon. I had expected one of the maintenance guys, but the landlord and his wife showed up to inspect the place personally. They were in and out in under two minutes, and I was shocked that they didn�t say a word about the carpet stain or all the pictures taped up on the Evil Childe�s wall. They didn�t say anything about anything, really. I�m not even sure what they were looking for... they took note of the kind of locks we had on our doors, I heard them muttering from the kitchen about the countertops, they did a brief peek into each bathroom but I couldn�t hear what they took note of in there. But they didn�t even glance at the heaters, even though that was on the list of things they said they�d be looking at.

Something weird is going on. I think they may be getting ready to sell the place or something. Our lease was up in June and they�ve never contacted us about signing a new one, and I know we�re not the only ones. So I�m a teeny bit worried about that, and I�m also worried that maybe they�re just trying to get rid of riff-raff and the blue stain on the rug is going to qualify us for the shit list, and where will we go, what will we do, and how will we come up with the money to do it?

Speaking of which, just to cap our week off in grand style, the Prince received notice today that, due to budget cuts, the major company he�s been contracted with for the last three years is not renewing any of their contractors this month. I�m not sure how bad this news actually is for us... he works for them through an actual contracting company, so he won�t be out of work right away. His home company will pay him for being �on the bench� while they look for a new placement for him, and he�s already talked to them about a few promising leads. This COULD result in him getting to work closer to home, which would be nice for him because his current commute totally sucks. Or, he may wind up working downtown, which means he�d take the train and I�d have a car again! And that would be very nice for me.

Of course, there is always the possibility they won�t be able to find him anything and after a few weeks on the bench, he�ll be out of a job completely and we�ll starve. A couple of people have told him recently that the job market for Java programmers has been picking up though, so maybe it won�t have to come to that.

Ok, yeah, so I�ve rambled on for a bit today. Now it�s time to go wake the Prince so I can take him to work yet AGAIN. I have some errands to run and possibly a test to make up from the class I skipped on Thursday, if Ramblin� Man ever decides to answer the messages I left him. The weekend promises to be a busy one too... lots and lots and lots of homework to get caught up on.

Well, the upside is I don�t have to worry about cleaning this weekend.

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Previous - Next
Last Five
Crappy job crap, weird neighbor, and someone whose baby I apparently want to have - 2006-05-08
Live from the dump - 2006-04-09
Kind of like a muzzle for your brain - 2006-03-29
...and then she fell ass-first into my cereal bowl - 2006-03-28
Playing catch-up - 2006-03-27

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