Good Intentions

This is the story of how Christmas decorations, laundry detergent, and a slow computer culminated in a late night misadventure.

This story began almost a month ago, but I had no inkling it would end up like this. Not long after Epiphany, we spent a happy Saturday putting Christmas decorations away. One of my children was feeling extra diligent and blessed us by putting the Christmas decorations away up in the attic above the garage. Ski was pleased that all was done. And all was very happy until this past week.

While Ski and I were laying in bed, drifting off to dreamland, there came a loud and sudden noise. It was not a burglar kind of noise, so we were brave and went to check it out. We opened the door to the garage to find part of the drywall attic floor hanging down. I quickly surmised that our helpful child had not set the boxed upon the rafters and had instead set them on the floor. This had caused the floor to cave in. Two boxes fell, one was precariously perched, and plastic tote hung by its rim.

Ski thought about tackling the problem this weekend, but his work load demanded some attention so the hole remains.

This afternoon, I was quite tired so I ended up taking a very long nap in my room. After the kids had gone to bed, I decided that I needed to delete cookies. Some of my children, who are compelled to cause me distress, tend to gunk up my computer with bad cookies. I don't know where they come from. And they download unnecessary things when they play their computer games so my computer ends up being slug-like. It frustrates me no end when this happens. But I cannot fix it during the school day and on the weekend, I forget. So tonight it crossed my mind to work on solving the problem once again.

Even though my eyes were blurring while looking at lists of cookies, I wasn't too sleepy. Ski went off to bed and I had planned to be finished when....I heard a LOUD crash.

Fearing the hanging tote with our Christmas ornaments had finally fallen, I opened the door to the garage. To my relief, it was only the large piece of hanging drywall that had fallen. I know that sounds really funny. Well, I thought, at least Ski would not have to saw it down. I walked closer and spied a bottle of laundry detergent on the floor. I store my detergent on a shelf next to the ladder to the attic. I didn't think much of it, but as I picked it up, I realized it was a dripping mess. There on the floor was a GIANT spill of laundry detergent. I got a box and a sponge and tried to sponge up what I could. It was at least half a bottle!!! Oh my!!! It was an enormous pile of goo! What a mess!! I finally got most of what I could into my container and headed to the kitchen. While I was washing my hands, I almost knocked the container of detergent onto the floor. I had thought about throwing the detergent away, but decided to pour it into the bottle. Silly me....I was more tired than I thought. Instead of placing the bottle in the sink, I put it on the counter and then I stuck a funnel in it. I overflowed the funnel sending detergent down onto the counter and over part of my dishwasher. I finally finished that task and then headed back to the garage.

The thing about cleaning detergent is....the more you scrub, the messier it gets. It began foaming and it was still gooey. Yuck!! I finally gave up and threw a box on top of the spot. I'll deal with it tomorrow!! I was so thankful that the detergent was unscented. I hate nothing more than the detergent aisle in the grocery store so I don't think I could have survived working with this mess for long if there was an odor to it.

Now with my luck, my child who doesn't like chores will suddenly choose to do chores tomorrow a.m. and we will have to take a trip to the er for a fall on my soapy mess.

There must be a lesson in this, but at this late hour, I can't find one.