We Were Planning on Getting New Carpet Anyway

Leslie is home all this week, he took some leave after his recent travels. Since he is home for more than 2 days, we decided to tackle painting the hallway. This afternoon, he dashed out to Home Depot to buy some supplies. We HAD to paint the ceiling because the previous owners had it painted this horrible putty color that exactly matched the horrible putty colored wallpaper. No biggie. We move some stuff, he gets the roller going and I watch on as the ceiling is transformed into a regular ceiling that will actually refract some light as opposed to sucking it all in. Things were going well, the no-splatter ceiling paint was, indeed, no splatter as advertised. Eventually, I had to abandon him to his own devices and start dinner (chili chicken tacos with re-fried beans and home made guacamole, if you were wondering), this was okay with him because usually The Hacksaw (a.k.a. Butter Bean) and Billy Bones follow ME, so that would leave him with no distractions to finish up.


You can tell where this is going right? I mean, a member of this family up on a ladder, that's always good for a story....


So apparently he was rolling along and finished up.....In the kitchen, I was fielding a million questions from Bean and hopping around Billy Bones who decided that a nap in the geographic center of the kitchen was in order, getting the diner ready. I was standing at the counter with a knife in my hand, pitting the avocados when I heard " fumble, thumble, crash bang thump, bangitty bang!!!" I just KNEW that Leslie had fallen off of the ladder. I dropped the knife and avocado, I turned- and in slippery socks on a freshly mopped kitchen floor, take off running to Leslie. When I took off running, so did the other two creatures in the room. According to the laws of physics or whatever, we all three end up in the door way together and I am forced to pull a Buffy-esque, turn flip, jump, hop and stumble to keep on my way towards my husband whom I am imagining with a broken femur and a paint brush stuck in his ribs. Somehow I manage not to kill myself or the kid or the cat. I turn the corner into the living room where I can, at last hear vibrant, sailor worthy cussing so I know then that Les is fine, however gravity and momentum have their way and I scuttle into the hall stairs and tip forward a bit to see Leslie in a Sea of White. A. SEA. OF. WHITE.


According to Leslie here's what happened on his end..... He was up on the tall ladder about 8 feet into the air, he brushed the last brush of paint on, turned a bit, checked his work. He was pleased with said work, no splatter, no spills, no second coat needed. Then he continued to turn to step down. However in his musings , he actually forgot that he was on a ladder (yes he CAN forget something like that), so he turns and BOOM, down he goes. He goes down with a full canister of paint in his hands. Somehow, he just ended up with a small scrape on his hand.


The carpet in the hallway though? That didn't come out unscathed.


We just laughed and cleaned it up the best we could. Hell, the carpet is awful too and we really were planning on getting new. Really.