Diary of a Middle-aged Woman

Bleach, A Carpet & Me (Or the One-Two Punch, Part One)

They say "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." Well, speaking from personal experience, I know this to be true.

This past week I thought I would give my bathroom a thorough, good old-fashioned cleaning. I diligently gathered my supplies and headed toward the bathroom. I mixed-up a concoction of bleach and water and began the arduous task, making sure to scrub, polish and scrub some more. Satisfied that I had done a great job, I carried my bucket of bleach and water out of the bathroom, making my way to the kitchen to pour the lethal mix down the kitchen sink.

One thing that hadn't occurred to me as I carried the mixture through my living room was how clumsy I am. As I casually walked through the living room, my foot, or feet, - not sure if it was the both of them or not - tripped on the mop that I also carried. I stumbled, lost my grip on the bucket handle and - yep - dropped the bucket of bleach and water.

Panic ran through me - OH NO! Bleach and water on the carpeting - that can't be good. I watched the lethal dose of bleach and water puddle on the carpet. Quickly I grabbed the nearest supply of towels and began soaking up the liquid. I went through a whole stack of dish towels and felt confident that I had gotten most of it out of the carpet. In fact, the carpet was still the same color so I began to think that I had more water than bleach in the bucket. Thinking I had dodged a major bullet, I went about doing other chores around my house.

When I made my way back to the living room, the bleach had done a number on the carpet. There was a huge blotch right smack in the middle of the floor courtesy of the bleach. There was no hiding it, no pretending that I didn't see, and no acting like there wasn't a spot on the carpet. This was way too big.

I decided to call my husband to fess-up. Better to let him know before he comes home than for him to walk into the living room and find it himself.

"Hello Vick" he said cheerfully.
"Hi Michael" I said - not so cheerfully.
"What's wrong?"

After explaining my accident, my husband proceeded to give me a ten minute lecture on being careful with bleach. Biting back my response of "I know you have to be careful!" I listened without comment.

"How big is it? Is it as big as a basketball?" he naively asked.
"Oh it's bigger than that." Why sugar-coat it?

We hung up and I began looking for a throw rug to hide the blotch until we could figure out what to do. Meanwhile, my husband called the carpet warehouse to see if they had any remnants left of the color we needed. After they laughed out loud, they informed my husband that was impossible since we bought the carpet about eight years ago. However, they suggested that we call our insurance agent to see if our homeowner's insurance would cover the accident.

I quickly dialed our agent and much to my surprise, it was a covered accident. Whew! Who knew that clumsiness was covered by homeowner's insurance? I felt this was good news, but my husband saw it differently.

"We still have to pay the $500 deductible, so, how do you figure we saved money?"

I'm still working on an answer to that one.