Things I wouldn't know otherwise

I have recently come to realize that there are so many things I have learned because of parenthood and pet ownership that I would never have discovered otherwise. I had a light bulb moment this afternoon while cleaning the house. My place has been somewhat neglected over recent months as we battled every cold and flu bug the world could throw at us. Let's just say we probably kept the walk-in clinic and neighborhood pharmacy in business. Anyway, I finally got the cleaning bug today which rarely happens at the best of times but it is spring and so I got down to it.


I did the usual dusting, vacuuming, and tidying type stuff. As I neared the kitchen area I was oblivious to the treasure awaiting me. I've had a box of coolers on the floor for some time now. I had drank one probably about a year ago and discovered it had a flavour that was not appealing to me personally but being frugal decided it made sense to keep these coolers in case someone pops over and really wanted something other than strawberry milk. Well the dust settled in on this poor box of wild berry coolers. I guess nobody wanted to come over last year for coolers and a helping of H1N1. You people are so fickle. Anyway, today I decided it was time to get rid of these things once and for all. I bent down to pick this box up when I hear "rip". The bottom of the box had stuck to the floor and tore right off. What you ask could this box ripping, super glue substance be? Turns out it was dog urine people!! I told you he pees and I don't know about it. I now have proof. I am not sure how many moons ago the dog must have peed on this box but it was now firmly stuck to my hardwood floor. Sigh. The dog of course comes over to inspect with his little tail wagging. He looks at me like "Whose a good boy? Bark. I am!! Rub my belly....pleeeease!!" Given how long ago this must have occurred I decide there is no point in even thinking about yelling at him for it. He's just so thrilled I'm looking at him and he nuzzles in for a cuddle. Sigh again.




So I get busy cleaning this super substance while I grumble about getting thrown off track with my other cleaning. I'm certain to run out of steam now before I complete the tasks that I went in knowing about, let alone the ones that just spring up on you when you are on a roll. The first layer is mostly a cardboard like substance that comes off fairly easily. I pat myself on the back. This is going well and I should be done in no time. Phew!! The second layer appears to be some other type of colored paper and with a bit of scrubbing comes off without too much trouble as well. Wow. The third layer is an almost indescribable substance. It looks like someone took a layer of white paint and slopped it on the floor. Not just regular white paint but melamine. For those of you who aren't familiar with melamine paint it is basically a liquid plastic version of paint that sticks like nothing you can imagine. And now it's on my hardwood. Or at least a reasonable impersonation of it is.


I first discovered melamine when I bought a house with painted tile counter tops. Now I didn't buy the place because of this feature. I know what you're thinking. Who the heck wouldn't want white painted tile counters in a kitchen? Me that's who!! I thought it was kind of a weird thing to do but everything else about the place worked and was a good price. My then husband and I figured we would be able to remove the paint and save the counter tops. If you are thinking "Were you drunk Colleen?" then you are clearly familiar with melamine paint. We worked on that counter top for weeks and weeks to remove the paint. I'm talking paint removers that could kill you, sanders that wore down, chisels that just cracked the tile but didn't remove this paint, and a whole lot of blood, sweat, and tears.....not necessarily in that order. More like sweat, tears, blood, tears, sweat, blood, tears and then some cursing. Lots of cursing at the end. Finally we just said screw it and repainted the stupid melamine back on. Awesome right? If you can't beat 'em then throw your hands up and invite them in for coffee.



So to find this type of substance today as the third layer stuck to my hardwood floor I just about cried. Okay, I didn't almost cry but I probably said some bad words. Yes, yes I did say some very bad words. So sue me!! I started scrubbing. Eventually to my surprise the stuff started to lift away. Hooray I was thinking this is a Christmas miracle. I know it's almost June, but I can have a Christmas miracle in May if I want to okay. After another 30 minutes of full out scrubbing I get almost all the white paint off the floor. So what do you think I find underneath? Polished hardwood. Nope. Money? Dream on. Willy Wonkas Golden Ticket? Guess again. I find a damn bar code. Yes, a bar code on the floor. The ink beautifully imprinted into the wood. Do you think I can get that sucker off? Nope. It's on the floor and I'm pretty sure it's permanent. Is this a sick joke? I overcame melamine!! The substance that can not be removed. I conquered that to be stopped by stupid little lines? Grrr. That is like thinking you've climbed Everest. You scream "Woo hoo, I conquered Everest" when your guide says...."Um, you wanted Everest? Dude, I'm so sorry, I thought you said Mount Avarest. My bad. Guess you're all disappointed and stuff, hey? Wow, that would have been really cool to have climbed Everest don't you think?"And all you want to do is punch him in the face but you don't because it won't mean you climbed the right mountain anyway. Sigh.


Okay, for those of you just joining us here's my little story again. I get this really cute dog and he's all loving and stuff. I buy some coolers that look really great but end up not being my favourite kind. The people who make these coolers opted against regular cardboard for the boxes and instead decided to make it all fancy and stuff. Who wouldn't? I leave the coolers on the floor and the dog pees on them. Didn't notice for a long time. Whoops. Find 237 layers of fancy stuff stuck to my floor. No big deal right? WRONG. I work really hard removing layers and think, wow a cooler would be great right about now. But wait, the dog peed on them and maybe I don't really want one after all. Besides they tasted yucky even without the dog pee so now I really don't think it's what I want. It sinks in that my reward for working so hard is a bar code. Wow, that wasn't on my gift registry at all!! Who asks for that. Okay maybe somebody would but not anyone normal. Seriously. I swear lots but my kids weren't home so only the dog hears it as I rub his belly so it's not that bad. Then I realize I did gain valuable wisdom that one could not have unless they lived through this experience...or know someone who writes blogs about this kind of thing. So now we all know that dog pee mixed with plastic paint (aka crazy, sticky, plastic, probably causes cancer stuff) and bar code ink will ruin your hard wood floors. Of course shouldn't we have just know this anyway? Sigh.

A penny here and a penny there....

So recently I went through the drive thru lane at a popular fast food chain. I know what you're thinking....You Colleen? You who has so much time to cook a good meal? Why would you go to the drive thru? I have no good answer for this. Maybe it's because I want to spend too much money for a product that will eventually kill me. Don't we all do this? Ninety percent of the things we put in our mouths these days probably are deadly anyway or at least there will be some sort of health scare with them at some point. Even those of you who subsist on lettuce have Ecoli to worry about. A nasty little thing that Ecoli. Going after those who are actually trying to be healthy and BAM!! You risk taker!! Don't say I didn't warn you Rabbit.


Okay so I'm in the drive thru and I pull up to the huge menu sign with the talking voice. I hear this clearly spoken "Welcome to McDonald's, may I take your order" from what I imagine to be a well built, tall, handsome man. His voice rings so clear I am mesmerized for a moment. Since when could you ever understand the words coming out of one of these things? Naturally I'm a little suspicious of this clarity. We all just wait for the inevitable metallic sounding "Wah-cah tah Madonna, may I tah-yah-ah-ah?" followed by static and we just start talking assuming that the person on the other end can actually tell what it is we are saying. How do they know? Do you need special language classes to be able to interpret this foreign fast food language? Do they have English to Fast Food/Fast Food to English dictionaries? Do I ask too many questions? Do I need medication to stop these inner dialogue's I seem to always have with myself. I discuss this with inner self and decide I'm just fine. We like each others company.


I place my order expecting to hear that sweet handsome voice again which so graciously welcomed me to this restaurant. Instead a woman's voice comes on the line to give me my total. At least that is what I assume she did given that I did not have my handy pocket Fast Food translation dictionary with me. I could have sworn the first voice was a male. An impossibly good looking one at that. Am I losing it? Okay, well, that's a bad question because I probably am, but even I know I didn't imagine this. His voice had come through clearly and hers was the typical mumble of a fast food speaker. Why would they have this feature? Is the initial greeting so overwhelming for the drive through staff that they had to automate it? Seriously? One verbal greeting is what stands between chaos and job satisfaction so they decided to record it to improve the working conditions of McDonald's Drive thru staff?


One of my first jobs required me to carry the "slop" bucket which was as you can imagine a delightful chore. The bucket was a large white thing that was used to discard any food or drinks of the bar patrons. It usually stewed for hours before eventually spilling over. The white color was significant because you could see all the sludge that hadn't quite made it inside which made carrying it as the contents sloshed and spilled all the more rewarding. There is nothing more invigorating than the feeling of wet slop spilling into your shoes as you walk. For minimum wage no less. Then I'd have to hoist this sucker up and into a dumpster which was about 5 feet tall. Can you imagine how great I smelled at the end of a shift? Now that is motivation to get an education people. There was nothing I wanted more in my life as I walked down the long back hallway with slooshy shoes and sticky hands than to be in school so that I never ever had to do this chore again.

So as I waited for my order to be made....who are we really kidding here, it was made 4 hours ago but the heat lamps make me think my burger is fresh.....I wonder to myself how cushy a job at McDonald's might be if you don't even have to greet people and only have to push a little button that says the words for you. I ask you where is the incentive there? Shouldn't everyone have a horrible first job with low pay that makes them want to do better?

Make work project

This weekend I took the kids to the local hardware store to buy some gardening supplies. It was one of these crazy over sized stores that make no sense to the average woman. Who the heck puts flowers on one side of the store and the washrooms way on the other side? Seriously. Are women and children not likely to be in the gardening area. Hello? So here we are looking at the list when I see the familiar dance. I ask " Sweetie, do you need to use the washroom?" I will tell you right now this is the stupidest question you can ask a child. Has there ever in the history of the world been a child who says "Yes" to this question? I don't think so. So I decide that we are going anyway. This is the second stupid thing I do. Why bother asking the child if you are taking them anyway. This is Child Development 101 and I've just broken the cardinal rule. Ugh. Did I mention I work in Child Development? Awesome right?


So we are off pushing the rickety old cart with the one wheel that won't quite roll in a forward direction making the most shrill metal scrapping sound as we boot it across the concrete floor. My daughter who decided to dress up in a lovely summer dress accented by her purple rain boots and a chunky costume jewellery necklace to go to the hardware store is madly trying to keep up with me. All I can think of is someone yelling "Wet clean up in aisle 46" if we don't make it on our personal Marathon of Hope. We make it just in time. Phew. Now comes the long walk back as the kids argue over who gets to push the cart. Smart customers are getting out of the way well in advance. This sort of activity is a good way of determining the general IQ's of people at a large store. Give your child a cart and see who they hit. Anyone who gets hit would not have survived in the wild. I'm just saying. Finally 14 hours later we make it back to our original spot to complete our shopping adventure.

The end of one adventure really is the beginning of another. While the supplies are now in our possession we must do something with them. At home the kids and I busily get started on our little gardening project. I say little because that is what it was going to be. Looking at my flower bed I imagine the previous owner may have had something spectacular here. All that is left from our years of minimal effort and a workman who didn't know that stepping on flowers was probably a jerky thing to do is a few sad looking green things that could actually be weeds. The plan: To dig up a few plants that had seen better days and sow some new seeds to replace them with. Easy right? One thing I forgot to factor was that my children are overly eager helpers with poor attention spans. There is no planning activities of this sort in my house. It's a jump right in and work on the fly kind of thing. So into the flower bed we were. Dirt is flying and holes are being dug. These are holes for the sake of holes my friends. Nothing was going into them this weekend but we have holes!! Of course we had more holes but as one digs a space in the ground dirt must be placed somewhere. In a hole it goes. Luckily they both lose track of what they are doing and nobody seemed to notice that their work was being undone as quickly as they were doing it. We had a solid 2 hours of dirt moving going on. This freed me up for the battle I was going to wage against the Beast. I do not know what sort of plant this ugly bush is which is why I have named it this. Well and the fact that it wasn't a beautiful plant. I have hated this thing since I moved in almost 6 years ago. However I have not been stupid enough to take on this nasty thing until now. I broke my brand new pitch fork trying to remove this sucker but in the end I won the battle. It is out of my flower bed. The kids and I started some seeds in a tray to eventually place in the garden. I am hoping something grows from these seeds. It is hard supervising two children at opposite sides of a seed try as they randomly drop microscopic brown seeds into brown dirt. I'm just hoping that we have enough things grow that we can make our own quirky garden out of it.

All in all we had a fun day together. Nobody peed on the floor, I slayed the beast that was taking over my garden, and we have the best holes on the block.