You know it's gonna be a bad day when you're hit with three crises before you can even make it out of the bedroom. First it was a daughter calling to say she needed a document from me, like yesterday. Could I possibly Fed Ex it? Sure. I could do that. After a little more sleep. But no, here came another call, one of those recorded messages that try to sound friendly and natural, which of course only makes them more annoying. This one informed me that I needed to have my satellite dish swapped out for a new model asap or I'd lose my HD television programming. I didn't even try to find pen and paper in time to jot down the 800 number, rattled off only once, that I needed to call to set up an appointment. By now, I was more or less awake. Might as well get up.
It was while stumbling to the bathroom that I noticed a brown drop or two on the white, just-scrubbed-yesterday bathroom floor. Not a good sign. Further investigation confirmed my worst fear: a sizable brown puddle smack dab in the middle of the closet floor. Pretty much anywhere else in the house, this wouldn't have presented much of a problem. Because when Bob and I rebuilt Terra Nova, we purposely chose to install tile and wood floors throughout. There was a reason for that--and this was it. We compromised with wall-to-wall carpet in only two places: Bob's studio. And our bedroom closet. So I was looking at a bad situation here. Really bad. There was only one way to deal with it: break out R2D2.
R2D2 is a commercial grade steamer/wet vacuum that looks exactly like the personable little droid from Star Wars. I'd hoped it would make quick and chemical-free work of cleaning all that tile. But alas, R2D2 turned out to be a pain rather than a labor-saver. It bristled with bulky hoses and weird attachments, took forever to heat up, and then had to be disassembled and dumped, not a job for the faint of heart. Eventually, despite its pop culture cache, I'd tired of wrestling with R2 and relegated it to the garage. I'd even pretty well decided to divest it by way of Craig's List. At this particular moment, however, standing in my pajamas, contemplating the puddle in the middle of my closet carpet, I was glad I hadn't.
It would certainly help to have a little coffee before taking on this disaster, but I decided to hold out until afterward when I could better enjoy it. First things first, I needed to get all three Newfs downstairs and outside. Unfortunately, on our way to the door I detected a distinct whiff from the vicinity of the family room. Nooooooo!! I started checking. Tile floors first. Please, please, please. But no, of course not. Wood floors second. Not ideal, but doable. Again, no. The offense had occurred on the family room rug. And this time there were two puddles.
Clearly, this was the work of a master pooper, someone with near-surgical precision. How else can you explain three consecutive bull's-eyes on such a tiny bit of textiles? I already knew who was to blame for this triple catastrophe. Goofy Charter was easily in the clear. He simply does not possess the accuracy or premeditative skills necessary to pull off such a sophisticated stunt. Either Lilo or Terra, however, could easily have been the culprit. Except that only one of my three dogs is capable of shame. And Terra, my sweet princess girl, who usually dances downstairs in the mornings, today was not dancing at all, but slinking, casting occasional furtive glances in my direction as if to say, "Please don't kill me, and please don't cancel breakfast either." Poor girl. It's so hard to be perfect all the time, yet she suffers such guilt whenever she slips up.
With the dogs outside, I moved the family room furniture, extracted the rug and dragged it out to the deck where I slung it over a railing, hosed it down and left it to dry. Ikea, $150--what did I care? Then I went looking for Terra, who quickly divined my intent and had to be ordered into the dog wash for a thorough sudsing and cursory blow-dry. Next I rummaged through the garage until I'd unearthed R2D2, which I took apart and schlepped upstairs in three separate trips. One for the steam chamber. One for the dirty-water collection chamber. And one for the long and tangling hose.
I established a staging area in the bathroom where I reassembled R2 and steeled myself for the task ahead. It helped knowing that once the droid heated up, it would be only a few minutes more and my closet carpet would be back to normal, clean and stink-free! But then I encountered technical difficulties. I couldn't remove the cap on the steam chamber. It just spun around and around, the way it does when the machine is pressurized, the better to prevent unwary users from accidentally parboiling themselves. R2 wasn't even plugged in yet, so the cap should have unscrewed easily, allowing me to fill the chamber, press the "on" button and wait for steam to happen. I tried everything. Twisting clockwise. Twisting counter clockwise. Twisting while pushing. Twisting while pulling. Nothing worked. So much for an easy Superfund site cleanup. It seemed like a good time to retreat downstairs and have that coffee while I contemplated next steps.
Fortified by caffeine and a little breakfast, I tried again, again without success. So I appealed for help. On R2D2's home-planet website I found a customer service number and thus began my relationship with Analdo, who I've gotta say in all seriousness is one of the most helpful company reps I've ever dealt with. He not only expressed genuine interest in my problem, he dug out an actual R2D2 clone on his end to make sure we were in sync about all the relevant anatomical details. Two or three times he asked me to hold while he consulted his supervisors. Still unable to definitively diagnose R2's problem, he promised to call me back the next day with a solution, and he really did! I heart Analdo and his Jersey boy accent.
In my crude attempts to follow Analdo's suggestions, I employed a number of sophisticated tools, starting with pliers, then quickly devolving to an ice pick, a kitchen knife and a big rubber mallet. After all this I discovered that the defective cap was actually catching and turning momentarily every few spins, so simply by twirling it nonstop for 10 or 15 minutes I finally managed to remove it. But in the process I tilted the steam chamber a little too much and spilled the residual water. It spread across the floor in a mucky white cloud. Whoa. Perhaps I should have drained the clean water as well as the dirty water before sticking R2 away in the garage. I sopped up the mess with a dog towel, rinsed out the steam chamber in the bathtub and refocused on the main event in the closet.
It was while stumbling to the bathroom that I noticed a brown drop or two on the white, just-scrubbed-yesterday bathroom floor. Not a good sign. Further investigation confirmed my worst fear: a sizable brown puddle smack dab in the middle of the closet floor. Pretty much anywhere else in the house, this wouldn't have presented much of a problem. Because when Bob and I rebuilt Terra Nova, we purposely chose to install tile and wood floors throughout. There was a reason for that--and this was it. We compromised with wall-to-wall carpet in only two places: Bob's studio. And our bedroom closet. So I was looking at a bad situation here. Really bad. There was only one way to deal with it: break out R2D2.
R2D2 is a commercial grade steamer/wet vacuum that looks exactly like the personable little droid from Star Wars. I'd hoped it would make quick and chemical-free work of cleaning all that tile. But alas, R2D2 turned out to be a pain rather than a labor-saver. It bristled with bulky hoses and weird attachments, took forever to heat up, and then had to be disassembled and dumped, not a job for the faint of heart. Eventually, despite its pop culture cache, I'd tired of wrestling with R2 and relegated it to the garage. I'd even pretty well decided to divest it by way of Craig's List. At this particular moment, however, standing in my pajamas, contemplating the puddle in the middle of my closet carpet, I was glad I hadn't.
It would certainly help to have a little coffee before taking on this disaster, but I decided to hold out until afterward when I could better enjoy it. First things first, I needed to get all three Newfs downstairs and outside. Unfortunately, on our way to the door I detected a distinct whiff from the vicinity of the family room. Nooooooo!! I started checking. Tile floors first. Please, please, please. But no, of course not. Wood floors second. Not ideal, but doable. Again, no. The offense had occurred on the family room rug. And this time there were two puddles.
Clearly, this was the work of a master pooper, someone with near-surgical precision. How else can you explain three consecutive bull's-eyes on such a tiny bit of textiles? I already knew who was to blame for this triple catastrophe. Goofy Charter was easily in the clear. He simply does not possess the accuracy or premeditative skills necessary to pull off such a sophisticated stunt. Either Lilo or Terra, however, could easily have been the culprit. Except that only one of my three dogs is capable of shame. And Terra, my sweet princess girl, who usually dances downstairs in the mornings, today was not dancing at all, but slinking, casting occasional furtive glances in my direction as if to say, "Please don't kill me, and please don't cancel breakfast either." Poor girl. It's so hard to be perfect all the time, yet she suffers such guilt whenever she slips up.
With the dogs outside, I moved the family room furniture, extracted the rug and dragged it out to the deck where I slung it over a railing, hosed it down and left it to dry. Ikea, $150--what did I care? Then I went looking for Terra, who quickly divined my intent and had to be ordered into the dog wash for a thorough sudsing and cursory blow-dry. Next I rummaged through the garage until I'd unearthed R2D2, which I took apart and schlepped upstairs in three separate trips. One for the steam chamber. One for the dirty-water collection chamber. And one for the long and tangling hose.
I established a staging area in the bathroom where I reassembled R2 and steeled myself for the task ahead. It helped knowing that once the droid heated up, it would be only a few minutes more and my closet carpet would be back to normal, clean and stink-free! But then I encountered technical difficulties. I couldn't remove the cap on the steam chamber. It just spun around and around, the way it does when the machine is pressurized, the better to prevent unwary users from accidentally parboiling themselves. R2 wasn't even plugged in yet, so the cap should have unscrewed easily, allowing me to fill the chamber, press the "on" button and wait for steam to happen. I tried everything. Twisting clockwise. Twisting counter clockwise. Twisting while pushing. Twisting while pulling. Nothing worked. So much for an easy Superfund site cleanup. It seemed like a good time to retreat downstairs and have that coffee while I contemplated next steps.
Fortified by caffeine and a little breakfast, I tried again, again without success. So I appealed for help. On R2D2's home-planet website I found a customer service number and thus began my relationship with Analdo, who I've gotta say in all seriousness is one of the most helpful company reps I've ever dealt with. He not only expressed genuine interest in my problem, he dug out an actual R2D2 clone on his end to make sure we were in sync about all the relevant anatomical details. Two or three times he asked me to hold while he consulted his supervisors. Still unable to definitively diagnose R2's problem, he promised to call me back the next day with a solution, and he really did! I heart Analdo and his Jersey boy accent.
In my crude attempts to follow Analdo's suggestions, I employed a number of sophisticated tools, starting with pliers, then quickly devolving to an ice pick, a kitchen knife and a big rubber mallet. After all this I discovered that the defective cap was actually catching and turning momentarily every few spins, so simply by twirling it nonstop for 10 or 15 minutes I finally managed to remove it. But in the process I tilted the steam chamber a little too much and spilled the residual water. It spread across the floor in a mucky white cloud. Whoa. Perhaps I should have drained the clean water as well as the dirty water before sticking R2 away in the garage. I sopped up the mess with a dog towel, rinsed out the steam chamber in the bathtub and refocused on the main event in the closet.
I didn't want to chance refilling the machine and replacing the cap. Who knew if I'd ever get it off again? Better to wait for the new one Analdo was shipping me. So I called Bob for advice. "Well," he said, "the wet vac still works, right?" I didn't like where this was going, but I had to do something. So I ended up handcleaning the carpet (yes, I know) and using R2D2 to suction out as much moisture as possible. By the time I'd finished the job, I'd had to clean and disinfect the entire bathroom floor, R2D2, the sink, the bathtub, the dog towels, my clothes and, oh yes, me. I looked at the clock when I finally came out of the shower. It was 2:30 in the afternoon. And still I had to go to FedEx and call the satellite t.v. people before I could even think about getting any actual work done. Yeah. One of those days. I wonder. How much worse could it have been if I'd just stayed in bed?
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