Other’s bad days
Every once in a while my sister sends me an email that has me rolling. Currently, she is out in the back end of beyond, AR (population 2140 and shrinking). She is attempting to clean out a house that had been occupied for a number of years by a couple of elderly relatives. Said relatives really couldn’t manage for the last couple of those years; things really went downhill for the last months before nursing homes. I didn’t ask her permission to share, so hopefully she will still be speaking to me after she gets back on-line.
Now, you all remember that Pete Seeger Song Called Little Boxes? Which were all made out of ticky tacky and they all looked the same.
To Quote:
” Ticky tacky, this house brings a new meaning to the word ticky tacky.
Two of the kitchen drawers were off their tracks. So I emptied out the cupboard below and removed the drawer. Oh my.
“Track” consists of a nylon grove (there are no wheels involved here) that slides along a piece of particle board that is stapled YES I SAID STAPLED to the back wall of the cabinet. The nylon piece ends in a wider nylon drawer stop that is AGAIN STAPLED TO THE BOTTOM OF THE DRAWER. Alrighty then. Of course staples are hanging at various angles and prime to remove slices of skin from the person attempting repair of said drawer.
Person in charge of drawer repair (that would be me) wishes they had never started, and looks for something to mop blood leaking from various points on hand.
Then I get out my tool kit, I am prepared. We have screws, small nails and ah yes superglue. I patch missing pieces of particle board and superglue. I look for something to unglue the fingers on my hand that are stuck together, noticing that superglue does stop the bleeding rather well.
I then find a couple of screws and put them in place and straighten the few tin foil( I am sorry was that really metal) pieces that need to be screwed to the wall, then I slap more superglue on the whole thing.
I notice two things at this point, my super glue tube had adhered itself to the linoleum, and the fingers on my hand are once again in tandem.
I tackle drawer two; I am now an expert. I extract the drawer without drawing blood. Replace all staples with screws and replace drawer. Only one finger stuck to itself. Glue tube on floor leaves its label as I yank it loose.
Day’s work accomplished, two drawers fixed, not bad. Did I mention I had to empty the cupboard underneath each drawer?
Yeah, one contained all the heavy steel pots and pans, inspect, dirty to the dishwasher. Dishwasher full? of course, set aside. I look around appalled. I had to empty one other cupboard as well, all the baking dishes cookie sheets, all that stuff, mixing bowls. Are they clean? No of course not. Now I have a really big pile on the floor, and the dishwasher is full.
The cookie sheets are relatively clean because I have used them. I decide to place them in the drawer under the oven. Which is not empty. It is full of another set of pots and pans, which are what? Dirty. so I empty it out and decide I can’t possibly put the cookie sheets in, it’s too dirty.
So I pull the drawer out from the oven, which gives me a view of the underside of the oven and the floor under said drawer. Need I say more?? I scrub that, and scrub some more. I place cookie sheets in now clean drawer, dishwasher still running, I look around the floor and find I can’t walk anywhere. I place some of this stuff in the cupboard next to the oven. I open , it is dirty and full of more pots and pans and baking stuff.
What is that stuff ? Dirty. I am beginning to really hate these two drawers. It gets worse. Do you wanna go there ? I think not.
That was somewhere about a week ago, I keep running things through the dishwasher, four-five times and stacking them in the dining room for packing.
Result kitchen counters trashed, dining room floor trashed, cupboards all clean but empty.
That label is still stuck to floor, two fingers still glued together and I am still running the dishwasher, and finding more dirty dishes faster than it can wash.”
End Quote.
I look around my kitchen. The food is all put away. There are a few crumbs along with dirty dishes in the sink. But everything in the cupboards is clean.
I appreciate my DH and kids a bit better!
-Holly
Your poor sister. This sounds like major Schmutz!
Ruth