Spare Tires and Old Friends

I took the Kia to work on Friday, and The Squire took my Nissan up to the garage to see about new tires. As it turned out, I had a huge screw in the tread, which involved a patch, a plug, and a $10 charge – a far cry from the $200 we expected to shell out for two new tires! The spare is back in the trunk where it belongs, and has also been checked for leaks and such. That’s one of the many nice things about having an old friend for a mechanic. He takes good care of his customers and doesn’t try to rob you blind.

We are trying to get things squared away around here for the Open House next Saturday. I have not baked a single cookie, and we finally decided to get somebody in to clean the downstairs, rather than try to tackle that ourselves. We still have to get things straightened up, heaven knows, but the actually dusting, vacuuming and wiping down will be done by a pro. And well worth every penny.

Of course, when you need things to go well, that’s when they all go backwards. We have carpet in the bathroom, and it was beginning to look grungy around the base of the toilet, so The Squire pulled it all up, so he could put down fresh. The floor has rotted, so we have to make some sort of emergency repair to tide us over until after the party.

We keep all of our first-aid stuff – tape, pads, hydrogen peroxide, and the like – in a large plastic bin which we store on the top shelf of the linen closet. This morning, while I was taking a shower, I heard a mighty WHUMP but I couldn’t see anything out of place. Very mysterious. To cut to the chase, the bin had fallen off the shelf and landed in the  clothes hamper!

Our bathroom is a fair size, but oddly arranged (like everything else in the house) and there was really no suitable place for a hamper. The Squire put a large box with a trap door on the inside of the linen closet. You toss the clothes in the top, and then dump them out onto the floor to sort them for washing. He is a most clever fellow, that one. To quote my sister, I’m going to let him keep me.

Tags: cleaning lady, first-aid kit, good mechanic, laundry hamper, Open House, tire repairs