Breathe

Yesterday, in the middle of the human waste debacle, our pretty hardwood floors turned into foot snagging monsters and our lovely landlord told Jud that he would not do anything about it until after we moved out which, by our estimation, is probably still three years down the line (Not that we couldn’t move our butts out of there sooner and all that, but it is just so much work to do it and Sam and Justin and Michael and Dad are all far away. How can we move without any of them to help?).

When speaking about cleaning up the unbelievable amounts of toilet paper and crud off our floor, Jud mentioned that we needed the floors to be sanitary. The landlord replied, “Hardwood floors are never sanitary.” Jud immediately thought something along the lines of “When you live with my wife, they are.”

I came home to furniture that had been hastily shoved about and carpet on top of the furniture instead of it’s normal home below and most of the remnants of our neighbors showers and toilet flushings yesterday morning were gone (thank you so much crazy neighbors for completely ignoring the pounding on your doors/phone messages you received begging you not to use your water. My husband totally loves that shampoo you are using, by the way. It really helped cut the smell of your urine.) The stink was still there and the line of goo on the bathroom wall was still there, although the baby wipes that started the whole mess had been removed from the pipe (Hi! You know those warnings on the packages that say “Do Not Flush”? What do you say we all follow those suggestions? Mmmmkay? Otherwise, next time our home fills with crud, we will bring the buckets and buckets full of “water” over to your living room. Deal?).

Jud was overwhelmed with the drama of the day and needed a nice hot shower (which he was terrified to take for fear of more puddles). He went to clean up and I watched the toilet not overflow. I griped at him about the way the carpet was bent (as if he’d had time to worry about how the carpet was being cared for in the middle of his mad dash to beat the flow of water from reaching our furniture and electronics…as if a wet carpet, neatly rolled up would have been better…as if I had any sympathy for what he went through all day). I may have complained about the towels that were thrown away due to the massive amounts of waste they’d been sopping up and about another non-toilet related task. I wish I could blame my ridiculous demands on the fumes, but I’m not so sure that the answer isn’t just that I am mean – a mean mean woman with gigantic expectations of herself and everyone else.

With Jud clean and me changed into reasonable clothing, we decided to leave the apartment and go eat dinner at Matt’s – because when your house smells like the sewer, it’s pretty much the least appetizing place to be. When we got home I changed into clothing that is far from reasonable so that I could scrub away at the floor. I may have used a bleach solution on hardwood. I may have then used Murphy’s Oil Soap and followed it up with Orange Oil. I may have had some help from Jud after he finished his class work. I do know that our floor has never been cleaner, but of course, they’ve never been that warped before either. Warped like the mean mean woman’s brain.