By now you’ve
all packed away your holiday decorations, and even adjusted to the new, barren
appearance of your home minus the sparkle and merriment. Right?
But why can’t I ever do this without a major mishap?
This time it
was when I washed the Christmas Rat off my kitchen window. Every year we—okay, I—paint a wreath on
there. I chose it because I am not an
artist and a circle seemed like an easy motif.
Then, one year, I decided to add a little mouse, and a tiny stocking
hung on a sprig of pine, waiting for Santa to bring him a treat.
Except one
year I made the mouse a little too big and the kids squealed with delight, “It’s
a Rat! It’s a Christmas Rat!” and
insisted on this tradition ever after.
This year I
chose the wrong day to paint my masterpiece—I mean my disasterpiece. It was extremely cold, so I splashed on that
paint as fast as Santa slips down those chimneys, and in five minutes headed
back inside. But, in my haste, I forgot to add a bit of soap to the paint. This meant that when January rolled around
and it was time to wash the window, it wouldn’t budge.
I sprayed a
strong degreaser on it. I scrubbed. Nothing.
Finally I decided to use the nearby garden hose, and dialed the “jet”
setting so it would be like a power washer.
Except I
forgot to back away. Suddenly the surge
of water ricocheted off the window and drenched me with green paint and
degreaser. Head to toe. I looked like
the Hulk. Only madder.
My hair, my
face, my clothes—all were covered with soapy green paint. Oh—and remember this
is the dead of winter, so the hose water is almost
freezing, but not quite.
I screamed, of
course, but then I discovered that my cell phone, which I had placed on a table
outside, also got splashed and now it won’t work.
Well, YouTubeMom to the rescue, right? I don’t make those videos for nothing, and I knew to bury
the phone in dry rice. But I also knew
time was of the essence, so I drove across town to Sprint, where the guy blew a
canister of air on it, and that did the trick.
(It did not ricochet onto him, or onto me, I might add.)
And I’m
pretty sure he went home that night and told everyone a green monster came into
the store that day, with a phone she had probably dropped into a swampy lagoon. Whatever.
I also noticed that St. Bob had
kindly removed the rest of the wreath from the window. So I had been rescued twice. Not bad for a day’s work.
You,
too, can be a hero. Just buy one of my
books here, and I will be forever grateful.
I
