The Shaffers and The Day that Couldn't Go Right

I fear that you may think things are always perfect here in the land of Shaffer. That nothing ever goes wrong, that apart from questionable early-morning hair, we are always sparkly and funny, and that I deliver perfectly presented meals (on time) each day.

You would be very wrong, if you think that. We are, after all, human, and we have bad days too. Sometimes comically bad days. (Of course they're never comical IN the moment, but they're still comical.) And I feel to fairly represent our lives, I should tell you the bad days along with the good.

So settle in, people. Settle in.

For us, it started Sunday afternoon, when Ryan was watching the Colts play the Cardinals. (I know you think I'm going to say THAT was part of the bad day, but it actually wasn't. At least this week our coach knew the name of the team we played!) While Ryan watched, I sat in the corner of the living room, copying some photos from my hard drive onto my laptop for a project I'm doing.

My leg started to fall asleep, so I shifted it and in the process, my foot tugged against the cord of my hard drive. That dragged a little ways, knocking over my half-full coffee cup. I didn't know whether to grieve the loss of the coffee or fear the stain that might settle into our carpet. So I did both.

I ran into the kitchen, got some towels, ran water over them, and scrubbed that spot of the carpet. I got out the Tuff Stuff and sprayed it on the spot, scrubbed some more, and went on with my day. But that night, when the natural light had faded and our lamps were on, a huge, ugly, brown spot shouted at me from the corner. I gulped and pointed it out to Ryan. (By the way, Ryan HATES carpet stains. He will work tirelessly to remove them, and I feared we had a whole tireless chore ahead of us.)

He ran to the garage for the actual carpet cleaner. Not like a can of it. The machine. He patiently ran it back and forth over the spot, trying to draw out the coffee stain on this carpet that is barely past its first birthday. The carpet we put in because the old carpet had stains on it. THAT carpet. 

He put another kind of stain remover over it and we went to bed, hoping for the best.

Guess hoping wasn't enough, because we woke up to still-stained carpet Monday morning. I'm pretty sure it was a good thing I didn't check my blood pressure, because I was sweating this spill pretty significantly. Why can't this stuff ever be his fault? I always feel much better when it is!

I had the whole day at home on Monday, and my main goal was to knock out some writing that had been giving me fits. Normally writing sort of falls out of me, but this assignment (due this week) was proving to be a long and somewhat painful labor.

I worked busily the entire morning and about 11, I went into the kitchen to prepare our lunch. It was a chicken and broccoli bake that I've made before, so I figured it would go quite smoothly. About 11:15, I put it in the oven, so it would be ready at 11:50, per the instructions. That would give it a few minutes to cool before Ryan got home for lunch, right?

Right, except when I checked it at 11:45, the chicken was still raw.

This is not winning me wife of the year.

Somehow, and I still don't know how, when Ryan walked in the front door for lunch a little after noon, the chicken was cooked all the way through. Whew!

I was supposed to put our dinner in the slow cooker right after lunch, but I didn't even think of that until about 3:30, right after I had birthed the end of the rough draft of my writing assignment. How did I mess up two meals in one day? Sigh. On to plan B for dinner!

So as I was trying to figure out what to do for a plan B dinner, I went to the bathroom (the one in our master bedroom) and said to myself, "Why do I smell cat pee?" I looked at the rug by the shower and saw a huge wet spot. Ryan and I had both showered early that morning, so I knew the rug could not still be shower-wet. I sniffed it. Cat pee.

WHAT!? WHY!?!!?

Then I remembered that Braeya had been crying hard and long all afternoon, but I hadn't figured out why. (She cries hard and long every morning at 4:00, too, so she cries wolf enough that I didn't really explore her afternoon meltdown!)

I will interrupt my story to explain a recent change in Braeya's world. For about the last year, we have housed her litter box in our guest bathroom, inside this super nice box that looks like real furniture. During Phoebe's visit, we'd brought in a regular covered litter box with a swinging door and put it in our master bathroom so Braeya had a bathroom to use without trying to sneak through the house, unnoticed by Phoebe. Ryan had decided that when Phoebe went back home, he wanted to relocate the main litter box to a closet in our office, so our guest bath didn't have pieces of litter scattered about. I understood, especially since we're hosting a small group now.

So he had relocated the swinging door litter box on Sunday, from the master bathroom to the office closet. He'd showed her where it was and she went and we thought everything was okay. He had turned around the fancy box over the guest bath litter box so the door faced the wall and she couldn't get in. (Training process.) 

So when I discovered this spot on the bathroom rug, I immediately feared Braeya was rebelling because of Phoebe's visit, much like she had rebelled after we moved. (That rebellion led to new flooring in the office!) I picked her up and carried her into the office, to the newly planted litter box and that's when I discovered somehow the swinging door had gotten lodged shut and she couldn't get in. Bless her heart! That's why she'd been crying!

I felt much better that this wasn't an act of rebellion, put the rug in the washer, cleaned the floor, turned on the diffuser, and tried to figure out how to tell Ryan we not only had a coffee stained carpet, but a freshly violated bathroom rug.

When he walked in the door after work, he could smell the telltale ammonia right away. He asked if maybe there was another spot somewhere, so I crawled on my hands and knees over every spot of carpet, trying to find more wet spots. Every. Square. Inch. I found nothing. I diffused and diffused the rest of the night, trying to get the smell out.

After dinner, Ryan went outside to dig another trench for the gutter drains he's installing. About halfway through his work, I sauntered outside and said (mostly to be informative) "Hmmmm the internet and TV stopped working." His eyes slid shut very slowly, and he said, "I think I hit the line."

WHAT?!?!?

And also, THIS TIME IT WASN'T ME!!!!

Apparently when he was digging, he dug right through the cable line and nicked the coating on the outside. He put tape on it and that fixed it, so THANKFULLY we didn't have to pay for a service call.

We thought the night of mayhem was over.

We thought wrong.

Before bed, Ryan emptied Rosie (the vacuum) and as he did, he said to me, "Did Rosie get in the bathroom today?" (We close the bathroom doors when she runs because she tends to get stuck in them and not be able to vault herself back onto carpet.) I said yes...Braeya had managed to open the door and Rosie got in. He said, "Was that before or after the pee?"

And that's when I knew.

She had gotten stuck in that bathroom after Braeya's emergency, and with nowhere to go, she just went over and over that rug. And then I found her. And I set her free in the rest of the house. Which she happily swept, spreading that vile smell everywhere she went. No WONDER he could smell it when he walked in!

And that was when I collapsed on the floor and cried. By bedtime I just laid there and laughed because what else could I do?

Are you KIDDING ME, Monday?

PS we took Rosie apart and sanitized every part of her that we could not soak.