Another of our offspring chose to test us while quarantining. As I said earlier, I wasn't sure if we would all come out of this two week stretch unscathed.
Exhibit A:
Reg finished the last of a gallon of milk just as I was putting dinner on plates. Mini reminded him that whoever finishes the milk is expected to race down in the basement and retrieve the next gallon from the fridge down there.
Off Reg went.
Curly was on her stage in the basement warming up for a Zoom dancing class. This was one of those nights when I didn't start dinner early enough to accommodate a 6:00 dancing lesson, so Curly ate leftovers beforehand.
I heard Reg on the stairs as he was heading back up.
I heard Curly gasp and call out: REG!
I heard liquid. Lots of it. I heard some babbling dialogue.
Reg: OH . . NO! HELP. . . I CAN'T. WAIT . . . GOSHHHHH!
Curly: Reg MOVE! GOOOO!
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| Note the crack BELOW THE HANDLE. |
Reg popped up from the stairwell with a broken gallon of milk. To the naked eye, he appeared to be holding a fountain OF MILK.
It was still gushing EVERYWHERE.
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| Coach moments after we started the de-milking process. |
It reminded me of when I used to work at Burger King in high school and I was an 'opener.' I had to get there early and set everything up alongside my boss. One morning I was trying to fill the shake machine. The shake mix was in a bag, whose idea was that? I was supposed to hold the bag, remove the screw on lid, and dump the liquid into the machine. I failed to grasp the bag of mixture under the neck of the opening when I removed the lid. I stood there juggling a bag of shake mix and in no time flat I was WEARING said shake mix and wondering how this situation had unraveled so damn quickly. I had to go home and change my clothes before returning to work. Massively embarrassing.
Back to Reg and the mess that had me momentarily contemplating moving to a different house . . .
He tried to say he was 'just carrying it up the stairs.' When you have a bunch of siblings, it's hard to get away with that kind of shit.
Curly corrected him right off the bat: Reg, you were spinning it around your head and when you turned to go up the stairs you bumped it on the low part of the ceiling.
Defense rests, your witness.
I sometimes do a move in my workout classes that is called a HALO. It sounds to me like my 14-year-old son (who is NOT an angel) was performing a halo with a gallon of milk. Lugging it around his head in a tight circle. Focusing on building up his triceps and biceps and not bad for core strength either. I discourage anyone from doing this at home . . . with a gallon of 2%.
This is one of those times when I am grateful for the 35 white crappy towels that gradually littered our home during Lad's four high school swim and four high school water polo seasons. Those towels soaked up the milk.
Coach as he stomped on the white towels on the stairs: IT'S EVERYWHERE. ON ALL THE PICTURES, THE COUCH, THE CEILING. THESE STAIRS ARE SOOO WET.
Then we ate a very surly dinner.
After dinner Coach had to teach a class on Zoom. He asked me to figure something out. Well, the carpet cleaners weren't likely to come anytime soon since we had a positive covid kid. Reg and I spent some time blotting the carpet (did I mention our basement stairs are carpeted? Insert growl here) with soapy water. Followed by more white towel drying. I thought the bad milk smell was already forming. Now I wonder if I'm just nose-blind to it.
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| It doesn't look bad, but it feels crunchy and then there's the smell. |
Us: You don't want to know.
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| My feet, Reg's arm. Me barking mad, implied. |
I had just started a load of towels before the milk flood, hours later I carried two MORE FULL LOADS OF milky towels up there.
In more of the Shenanigan folklore that I believe but I do NOT remember, Tank reminded Mini that she was in no position to tease Reg about this mishap.
Tank: Remember Mini, when you threw a gallon of milk at me and it exploded in the basement?
Mini: Yeah, but that was before Daddy fixed it up and it was just that gross tile and no carpet.
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| Check out Elmo photo-bombing in my old Burger King booth in the basement. Reg wore Elmo for a few minutes on Halloween. Yes, Halloween - weeks ago and he has since been told to put Elmo away. When the kids were younger, I'd go in the basement regularly. Now they're SUPPOSEDLY able to carry up a gallon of milk on their own, so I'm a less frequent basement visitor. Crunchy carpet and bad smells threaten me less. |
Wait, is she justifying throwing a gallon of milk at someone? I honestly don't remember this other milk gallon incident. Does this mean I will forget this one? Eventually maybe, but not anytime soon.
The worse mess you ever encountered? Did you move?
16 comments:
Yikes, what a mess! I think I'd be wondering if it would be easier to just burn the house down and start over. Hope everyone who is quarantining is well and that Tank is feeling better!
I can SMELL that milk from here. When I was little, we had a gallon of milk explode in the back of our station wagon one summer. Even after getting the statin wagon cleaned, it smelled like milk for months.
I love the Burger King booth LOL!
No thank you! That sour milk smell is awful. I remember getting rid of the carpet in the kids' playroom, and the smell that came up out of the pads when we tore up the carpet made me gag.
Nicole - I can only imagine the mess if the WHOLE gallon spilled. I mean it was close. It is crazy how much over a half gallon amounts to when it is spread around. Sigh.
Tank only felt feverish the first night and has been fine ever since. He seemed happy to be stuck in his room, thank you wifi. But I must say that when his 10 days were up yesterday and he was able to freely move about the house - he was in rare goofy form. I think isolation probably got to him more than he would care to admit.
Kari - I really think we managed to clean it up fairly well. I don't smell it. I will be watching the faces of any future visitors once we can have people over to see if they flinch due to a smell that we might not be aware of.
I'm going to guess that you sat in the plastic replacement booths at that Burger King where I worked at some point in your adult life. How crazy is that? The wooden booths were so much better, but I was thrilled when they agreed to give me one for being the most ridiculously loyal teen employee of all time. Oh, the memoires.
Kara - yes, sour milk is gross. Fingers crossed that we got it all. The twins who I sit for spit up more than any other baby I have ever seen, and of course there were two of them. I would like to wait until summer when they are over a year - then I could have the family room AND the basement stairs. Honestly, probably time to get the whole damn house of carpet cleaned (bedrooms are carpeted too, living room, dining room, study - not carpeted).
Worst mess ever - When the cat peed on the stove and we didn't notice and turned on the burner. I can tell you there is not a worse smell than cooked cat piss!
I think you should just bite the bullet and get that carpet dry cleaned! Merry Christmas to you!!!!!! :)
Cheryl - You win. Holy awful odor. I am allergic to cats, but if a cure is found for my allergies, still not going to be getting a cat. Yikes.
Beth - I do think that is a good idea. It will be on Reg's dime. He understands this and has not a leg to stand on. Obviously.
I've heard people say that the smell of spilled beer is awful, but I think spilled milk is much worse. What a mess, but it did give you a good blog post. Still no spilled milk at all would be better imho.
Ali- yes the smell is gross. I do not smell it currently. Maybe thanks to our excess towels we soaked it up super fast? Still it will need to be cleaned.
Thank you Reg for the great blog material. (Insert eye roll)
The Shenanigans never end at your house! Those kids. :) And to think that poor cow gave alllll that milk up just for it to make your carpet crunchy. And probably smelly at some point. :(
Elmo is for sure judging your family from the confines of his Burger King booth. Where the hell did you get that booth anyway?
Are you on FB? Are you a part of the best group on FB? Weird Secondhand Finds That Just Need To Be Shared
It's a great group. A few weeks ago someone shared their Pizza Hut light fixture (picture a Tiffany hanging light with the words Pizza Hut in it) and then I saw someone had a Subway booth. So, you're pretty hip and cool in case you didn't already realize that.
My biggest mess? One that is on the tip of my (tongue) fingertips is when Linds came to me in the middle of the night at around 6 years old and said: "My stomach hurts, I think I'm gonna throw up" I sent her to my bathroom but before she could reach the toilet. she spewed chocolate pudding all over the place. Man....that shit stinks something bad after it's been digested.
Suz - Yes, there are always Shenanigans but they're getting slyer about them. I don't always know who dun-it. I recently texted Coach and asked him if he threw away an empty bottle of Jack Daniels, happily - yes, he did. Splitting a gallon of milk open is a dead giveaway when we are all quarantining in 'da house.
I worked at BK from freshman year till senior year of high school. When they upgraded to plastic (what? not an upgrade) they gifted me a booth. Of course, I requested one for being the bestest employee. Had it in my college dorm below my lofted bed and was known around campus for it. People on my floor used to ask to eat their freshly ordered pizza in 'the booth.' The fee was to share a slice with me. Hello freshmen 15!
I am on FB but barely. I posted a butt load of winter coats that kids have outgrown today and already sold one. I have not heard of the page you mention, but maybe I should check it out. Is there cash money prizes? Hee hee. (Can you tell our covid quarantine has cut into my income).
Oh, the vomit clean up. So awful. Ed did that once when he was WAY too old. He heard about it forever - like run to the bathroom and tell me LATER.
Nooooomg! But omg that's hilarious that Curly ratted him out, and then defended herself with "but the basement was gross when I DID THE SAME STUPID THING". If you had Canadian-type milk bags, this wouldn't be an issue. Also love Tank calling down from his tower room. If burning the whole house down isn't an option, at the very least that carpet is going to have to go, right? Milk. Why did it have to be milk?
Ali - It was technically Mini who tossed a gallon at Tank years ago, so Curly was the witness to Reg's screw up and Mini was the one in the same boat . . . good to know that I'm not the only one that gets them mixed up. I just couldn't believe another gallon had been lost down there and I didn't remember it. They once caught a giant bullfrog and accidentally let him loose in the basement - now THAT I remember.
I just joked with someone that Tank resembled Tom Hanks in Castaway when we finally let him out of his room. Kidding though, he was fed and allowed to use the basement bathroom.
I'm honestly surprised that the stairs don't smell worse. I have a very strong sense of smell (unless I do have covid and my test that came back negative was wrong) and I don't smell bad milk at all. I plan to start with a carpet clearer and then go from there.
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