Yesterday Blane and the sheetrockers set up this air compressor in the gameroom and go into another room to work with their air tools. It’s noisy and after a little while, quite smelly. Like sewing machine oil. It seems like I could taste it, too. I go hide out in another room downstairs to get away from the noise and smell.
The noise finally stops after about a couple of hours. The yelling starts. I go up there and can’t believe what I see. I don’t have a photo of it, and no one got hurt, but this is what I thought of:
That smell all over the house? That taste in my mouth? Machine oil. It was everywhere, a pretty heavy coating. On the carpet, the exercise equipment, the walls, the ceiling, over the balcony, and onto the first floor. Something was loose on the compressor and it sprayed this oil everywhere. Blane was in a panic. It was the last straw for him, he’d had a bad week at work. He couldn’t deal with it and wasn’t helping the situation.
I told the workers to go home for the day, then told everyone else to change clothes and get all the old blankets, sheets, and towels they could find. This oil is clear, so I had to feel for where it started and where it ended.
But first I had to get the panic out of the room. So I sent my husband out to the store for some paper towels and carpet cleaner. I figured I could keep him out longer if I insisted on having some Coke Blak. Added that to the list.
I enlist the kids to research on the net “how to get oil out of carpet” and to put oil soaked blankets and sheets to wash. Blane comes back with the paper towels and I roll out the area:
Yeah, it was a disaster. Down here too.
On that rug my friend smuggled in from Iran.
Since all Blane could do was stand there in shock after making a few calls to carpet cleaning companies who wouldn’t come out at night and in this weather, I told him to go to his martial arts practice. I said I was Harvey-fucking-Keitel in Pulp Fiction (The Wolf). He believes everything I say. So he went. Meanwhile I went to the store and got all the rubbing alcohol in stock.
I started with the outside and worked my way toward the worst part with a spray bottle full of alcohol and some towels to blot the oil.
When I got here, it was so soaked, I had to pull out the SpotBot. I filled the clean water tank with pure alcohol and cleaned the carpet with that. It is not recommended to put anything but water and detergent, but this sitch called for special measures.
No, I did not blow up but told the kids to be ready to call the fire truck. Spanky asked if it was true that alcohol kills brain cells. I told her it was too late for that.
Did it work?
You bet. Now I’m off to the ER to see if I burnt my lungs with all these fumes. It takes thirty minutes to get there. I’ll be there in ten.
Just kidding, I had to use The Wolf’s line somewhere in here.
The Show Must Go On 