My husband and I had something absolutely amazing happen recently. And while we wouldn’t have been excited about it in our 20s, as middle-agers, it thrilled us to no end.
We had new carpet installed.
Why is this so amazing? Because we’ve never had new carpet in a home we’ve lived in.
And after what happened last summer, it became imperative.
Remember back when we all first had our vaccines against COVID, and we thought that our lives were going to return to normal? Yeah, good times.
Well, during July, we decided to install new laminate—it looks like wood, but really isn’t—flooring. Brad, along with our friends Bert and Bill (I’m using pseudonyms to protect my friends…and so that they will talk with me again), spent a few days putting beautiful floors in our kitchen, library (used to be the dining room, but during the pandemic, we realized that we never used it), hall, and half bath.
It was gorgeous. It was easy-to-clean. It was so much better than the previous floor we had, which was white. (Question—who puts white flooring in a kitchen?)
But when Brad went to nail down the metal strips that connected that floor with our carpet, he called me over. This wasn’t a good sign.
Brad: Look at this?
Me: I have no idea what I’m looking at…
Brad: See this teeny tiny piece of the carpet that was under the old metal stripping?
Me: …looking at where he’s pointing…
Me: Gasp! That cannot be our carpet. That looks almost white with colorful specks in it. Our carpet is gray.
Brad: Yeah, and…
OH. MY. GOD! Our carpet was close to white at one time too! Now it looked so gray that—excuse me for a minute…
Gag…sputter…spit…gag…
I don’t even want to know what was in the carpet over the years that turned it gray.
The worse part is that we had it professionally cleaned in the first year we moved in. Sure, lots of stuff came out—gagging again—but eventually, clean water showed up.
Yet, here we are living with gray-that-is-supposed-to-be-white carpet.
Can you guess how quickly we looked for new carpet? Faster than the Road Runner fleeing Wile E. Coyote.
Seriously. We were both totally grossed out.
Even our dogs were grossed out! They’d bat at us with their grimy I’ve-just-been-rolling-in-something-I-shouldn’t paws and say (in dog language of course), “This carpet is the worst, Mom! It smells.”
Now, we weren’t smelling anything, but if the dogs could smell it, we had a problem.
After much researching, we chose light gray carpet—that’s really light gray this time.
On the day it was installed, we were so happy! Birds were singing, bells were ringing, and all was right in the world.
Well, at least in our living room.
It looked like a completely different room. The carpet was clean! It was comfortable to walk on!
It was actually the color gray…
But something has happened to my husband and me since that new carpet arrived. We’ve developed Home Improvement OCD.
We’ve both had a little OCD between us. But nothing that would cause us any problems.
But now…
It began after the carpet installers left. I saw what looked like a pattern in the carpet that shouldn’t be there.
“Look at this!” I said to Brad.
“Honey, that’s just where their vacuum cleaner was. Look,” he said while spreading his foot across the grain of the carpet, fixing it in the process.
Later on, as we played a game of Let’s Rearrange the Furniture—which is always great on the back, let me tell you—we both began picking up “stuff” off the carpet.
Little pieces of dust. A tiny leaf. A tiny piece of dirt.
We’ve been doing this for days now. God help the first person who tracks something in on our new carpet.
And, yes, we’ve been taking off our shoes before we step on it.
Just like when you buy a new car, and you get that first scratch, which often freaks you out, and then you forget about it—that’s what we’re waiting for.
“At least this will get us vacuuming all the time,” Brad quipped.
Perhaps it’s time to invest in a Roomba. I’m sure the dogs will just love that.
Michele “Wojo” Wojciechowski, when she’s staring too closely at the new carpet on Dirt Patrol, writes “Wojo’s World®” from Baltimore. She’s also the author of the award-winning book Next Time I Move, They’ll Carry Me Out in a Box. You can connect with Wojo on Facebook or on Twitter.
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