I meant to type this up yesterday. Anyway, I’m at a friend’s house Sunday. He’s recently moved into this new apartment with his girlfriend. So, they’re still trying to get used to each other. Joseph finds humor in just about everything, but his g/f isn’t as easily amused. This all means they’ve spent the last few days at each other’s throats. Given, most of the confrontations are really his fault. So he decides he wants to do something nice for her and clean the place. We figure we have about 4 hours to get the place spotless. It was a total mess from the move. She had hung up the pictures and stuff, but had been on him most of the week about putting his stuff up.
So, we started unpacking and everything didn’t go as well as it should have. Cleaning up a little shouldn’t be that big of a deal. I started unpacking the stuff for his office and he decided to do the living room. While putting some of his stuff up, I heard this really loud crash. As far as I could tell, he had been dusting over the fireplace and knocked this sculpture-like thingy off of the mantle. He knew he couldn’t catch it, so he kicked his foot out(he’d played soccer with me for about 3 years, so the motion was pretty natural and seemed a smart thing to do at the time). He didn’t stop it, but he did manage to redirect the object toward their new glass coffee table. Yep, right through. So, when I get in there, I see this metal sculpture thing sitting in the middle of a bunch of broken glass and Joseph is jumping around, holding one foot, and yelling fuck, fuck, fuck.
He finally sat down and I grabbed a couple of beers. We then tried to figure out what Sarah was going to say when she got home. We thought about cleaning it up real quick and disposing of the evidence, but it was decided that instead of a mess she WOULD notice the absence of the table. So, we left it there. I told him to clean up the glass and then do the dishes and I’d go with him sometime this week to get a new table. I headed back into his office and kept hearing this thing bumping around, but it didn’t sound like anything was breaking, so I let it go. The noise stopped and then suddenly, the vacuum cleaner went on. I hear the shards of glass heading into a vacuum cleaner, then a weird noise, then a bang. Not good. Instead of cleaning up the glass, he decided to suck it up with a wet vac. Not meant for anything solid, especially not meant to hold a bunch of broken glass. Now we have a broken vacuum to go with the rest.
The top of the vacuum came off, so I took it off and inspected it. I figured it could be fixed(nothing wrong with the motor) and I put it back in the closet. I helped him pick up the big chunks and put them in the bottom part of the vac and then we vacuumed up the little pieces with their other vacuum. We only have about 30 minutes at this point before Sarah’s expected home, so I told him to do the dishes and wipe down the countertops I started back on his office. Once again. Bad move. Everything was going great. I heard him loading the dishes. I heard the dishwasher go on. I heard him humming to himself as he cleaned the counters. Then, he called me in. I heard something in his voice that scared me. I didn’t want to look, but I did. I went into the kitchen and saw suds coming out of the bottom of the dishwasher. It was at that point that I saw the dishwashing liquid on the counter. You know, the stuff that’s supposed to be used in the sink. Not good. I turned of the dishwasher and told him to run to the bathroom and grab some towels. By this time, the suds are running all along the sides of the counter and are threatening carpet. I fence of the area with towels and start trying to soak it up. Even with the dishwasher off, it’s getting worse and worse. I gave up. I set up a barrier about 3 rows deep of rolled up dry towels so it would get on the carpet. Then I grabbed 2 more beers and we watched TV for about 15 minutes. It would have been longer, but Sarah came home.
She was not a happy camper. She was glaring me down like you wouldn’t believe. Joseph tried to tell her it was all his fault, and explained the whole thing. Me laughing, I’m sure, didn’t help matters a bit. But, hey, it was funny. She seemed to believe him, but I still think that she thinks I had at least a little something to do with it. She said she’d take care of the kitchen, and I have to help get a new coffee table sometime this week. So, I guess we got off easy. But I’m not sure if she’ll ever let me come over again.
Oh, and a sidenote. He was sober the whole time. None of his thinking was affected by alcohol or drugs. He was just having a stupid day. Hopefully there’s a minimum of typos in this thing. I’m too lazy to proofread.
