The Coffee Creamer

Figuring out Motherhood. It's been a difficult one. Mostly I just fly by the seat of my pants and hope for the best. It seems to work surprisingly well with Zachary because he is so unpredictable. The coffee creamer for instance...

One morning while checking my e-mail I heard the refrigerator open. (Did I mention that I am looking for a fridge lock for a top and bottom fridge?) "Close it," I said. He did, and I figured all was well other than a possible stolen piece of bologna at 9am. Choose your battles, right? No more than a minute later, I turn around to find 32 ounces of French Vanilla coffee creamer poured into the carpet. Well, maybe only about 30 ounces since about two ounces was standing in the pig trough for the Little People barn. I guess he thought the animals were thirsty.

I clean up the mess the best that I can, soaking it up, then pouring hot water, soaking that up and repeating. I had good intentions to steam-clean the carpet myself by borrowing my mom's machine, but due to my love for procrastinating and the fact that my dad had gone on a lock-installing-rampage right before they left for England (thinking he was quite crafty) and had not given me a key to the house, it didn't happen.

I figured it would be fine. It only took about three days to really start stinking. We had no other choice but to have someone come in and do it. First I called Stanley Steemer and found out that they have an $89 minimum. Great. I decided to call some other people that Google had listed. The first one I called (which I will not name) told me they could do it for $39.95 and they could come out THAT DAY. Sign me UP! They said they would be here between 7:00 and 7:30 and sounded very legit.

Now, I don't know about you, but when I picture people coming to clean my carpet, I picture a couple guys pulling up in a big van with shirts on sporting the company name, pulling out their giant hoses, coming in and cleaning the carpet with an industrial machine. No. Not even close.

They finally arrive in a green CAR (yes - I said CAR) with duct tape holding up one of the windows, and out walk a woman and a teenage girl with floor length jean skirt on. Now, no offense to anyone, but they looked like they were about to give me some religious reading material other than the fact that they were carrying lots of mops and buckets and a bottle of cleaner. (Yes, you read that correctly...I did not write MACHINE.) I was scared, but luckily I had already enjoyed one glass of wine so I was going with the flow. I figured I would wait until after I saw the "procedure" to say "are you freaking kidding me?" Luckily, after evaluating my carpet, they said they would go and get their machine. Now how they fit that thing into the back of their car I will NEVER know, but they did, no less. They asked if they could use my water and I of course let them, they cleaned the carpet, and then asked if they could dump the grossness into my toilet...weird, right? I said yes, of course, but knew at this point that I was getting what I was paying for.

After we paid and they left, I waited a few hours and walked to where the spill was. The carpet still STUNK. I was livid for two reasons. First of all it was not a job well done, and secondly this meant that this woman was going to return to redo it (if I had anything to say about it). Luckily I called and she offered to come and make it right. I will say that it is much better after the second treatment. Lucky for us, we had friends here for their return and they were lucky enough to enjoy the ghetto carpet operation with us.