Efficiency, thy name is woman

We actually rented a carpet steamer Tuesday night, and got around to using it Wednesday night. We just have the basement carpet to clean, since the rest of the house is hardwood floors. The carpet was getting dingy from both "muddy dog paw" and "boys who helped us move in during a rainstorm" stains. Since we had to return it tonight, I decided while Dave was at work that I'd finish off the job.

It was easy, really, once I figured out how to work it. Yes, it really did take me a minute or two. After that, I packed the steamer and the mostly useless upholstery brush up and lugged them upstairs and out to the car.

Carpet steamers leave carpets pretty wet. So, we thought turning up our trusty little dehumidifier on Wednesday night would help things dry out by morning. It sounded fine, and, having just bought it in August, I didn't suspect a problem until we found it still making all the right noises but with no water in its little bucket this morning, despite running all night.

So, I figured no big deal, I'll just take the dehumidifier back to the big box store from whence it came after taking the carpet steamer back to the grocery store.

I thought I'd cleverly stashed the dehumidifier receipt in its box in spite of the chaos that was going on at the time. We had just combined households for the first time, in the middle of a rain storm (before this we lived 500 miles apart) and had the added fun of his dogs and my cats mingling for the first time. Apparently I hadn't done the clever stashing as planned since the only thing I found in it was some styrofoam and the cats' nail clippers, which, while a great find, wasn't the receipt I was looking for. I lugged the dehumidifier into the box and upstairs to the car.

Since it's not yet flip flop weather here yet, I went upstairs to put socks on before heading out, only to step in something wet upstairs in the bedroom. Prometheus (Yep, Russian dog, Greek name) looked up at me sheepishly as I yelled (not at him) all manner of obscenities about what this new wet liquid on my foot could be. I even asked him but, being the type of creature who eats entire bars of soap (and is also fond of eating my underwear) he had no answer for me. I even told him later that the wet goo was probably a result of his kleenex eating habits, and that kleenex was not part of the doggie food groups but got the same blank stare I got earlier. I stopped wondering and swearing long enough to wipe the goo off my foot in disgust (with a kleenex he likely ate after I left) and threw a pair of socks on, only to realize by the time I got downstairs that there was still an icky wet feeling between two of my toes.

At the grocery store I found myself being stared at by a woman in the paring space beside me who looked like she would rather eat a bowl full of cockroaches than get out of her perch in her van. Her husband (I assume) was exhaustedly slugging the boxes of pop and tv dinners they had bought into the van while she sat there with the van running, barking orders at him. She looked at me as though I had horns, and pity like she wondered what I'd done wrong not to have a pop and tv dinner slinging man of my own. It was truly a 'shwa moment. I lugged my wallet, cell phone, car keys and the big lug of a carpet steamer and its hoses into the grocery store from whence it came. Her van was still running with her in it when I returned to the car. Apparently not everyone got the whole "fossil fuels are bad for global warming" memo.

I hit anonymous big box store, lugged the humidifier in the door and explained I had no receipt but could they please take back the defective humidifier and give me a new one and I'd be happy to get out of their hair. After some deliberation and calling in some reinforcements from another department they agreed and the guy went to get a cart to bring a replacement dehumidifier out to me. When it arrived, I thanked them and grabbed the box (almost the size of my arm span but not really that heavy) from the cart and walked with it out the door to the car.

I had planned to do much more tonight but ran out of steam, hence the title not really fitting this post. Here's hoping the list in court tomorrow is short and I can spend some of the afternoon getting housey crap done before the new couch arrives Saturday!