Moving Tales, Adventures in Relocation is available on Amazon. The perfect gift for a friend, co-worker, or family member!
Carpet Diem
By Dannelle Woody
I absolutely hated my carpet. The once neutral beige carpet
was dotted with numerous spills and stains from my three kids eating on the go,
not to mention packs of their muddy-shoed friends, and the dog.
Ugh, the dog. How
many dogs would dig in the garbage, find a freshly used paintbrush and drag it
into the living room?
Of course the carpet had been professionally cleaned
many—make that very many times
before. But the stains always managed to resurface. It was time for a new one.
Definitely.
There was one problem though. We couldn’t afford new carpet.
Not now anyway. In fact, we were thinking of moving--downsizing to get out of
debt. Deep in creative thought one day, I was startled when the doorbell rang.
My neighbor Michelle stood at the door.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, making herself at home in the
kitchen.
I offered her a glass of iced tea and gestured toward the
living room. “This carpet is what’s wrong. It’s got to go. I’m sick of it!”
Michelle glanced around the room. “Well, it is pretty bad.
But I thought you told me you couldn’t afford to do anything about it.”
I shook my head. “We can’t. But I have a better idea. Let’s
rip the whole thing out!”
“RIP IT OUT? But the only thing under it is the subfloor,
plain concrete.”
“That’s no problem. I could paint it. You know, with the
same kind of
paint you use to paint the garage floor.”
“Battleship gray?”
“No way, I’ll sponge paint the floor so it looks like
stones. When I’m finished faux-painting it, this subfloor is going to look just
like a stone floor. What do you think?”
Michelle paused. “I-It sounds good, but won’t your husband
be mad?”
I smiled, trying to convince myself. “Nah, he’ll love it.”
So armed with a vast array of know-how gleaned from numerous
home improvement shows on television, the two of us began to rip the carpet
away from the floor.
We worked in sections, without removing the furniture from
the room. But as we rolled the carpet and padding toward the center of the
room, we soon realized just how big the job was going to be.
“This carpet is too heavy for us to move.” Michelle huffed
and puffed.
“I know. Hold on—I’m thinking,” I answered. “Hey, what if we
use my son’s skateboard to roll it out?”
Michelle shrugged, “We could try it. It might not be big
enough to handle this much carpet though. This stuff is pretty heavy.”
Summoning the last of our strength, we began to roll carpet
sections out the front door, dumping them on the front lawn. But the skateboard
wasn’t big enough for the job.
That’s when another idea came to me. “Michelle, what if we
use my Suburban? It has a trailer hitch in the front. We could tie or chain the
carpet to it and I could “rev” up the engine and drag it out the front door.”
“Like pulling an old tree stump out the ground,” added
Michelle gleefully. “I love it.”
Soon afterwards however, my husband Tom received a
disturbing call at work.
~*~
“Uh,
hello, uh Tom? This is your neighbor, Jeff. I’m calling because I thought you
might want to know about something going on over at your house right now.”
A
flash of concern gripped his heart. Was it a fire, natural disaster, busted
water pipes? Gas leak?
“What’s
wrong? Tell me.”
“Well,
right now, I’m standing by my front door looking over at your house. There’s a
blue Suburban in the driveway and your wife and another woman have your carpet
chained to the front hitch. Looks like they’re dragging it out. And the front
bumper is losing the tug of war if you know what I mean.”
“Dragging
what out?” asked Tom in disbelief.
“The carpet. They’re dragging out your
carpet. The whole neighborhood is out
there watching.”
Over the next month, my husband did manage to forgive me,
especially when he saw the great job I did faux-painting the subfloor to look
like real stone. However, our real estate agent informed us that prospective
buyers might turn away at the sight of a subfloor no matter how beautifully
painted. So, we had new carpet installed. A big disappointment for me, but we
eventually sold our home, after four offers from prospective buyers! The first
three contracts fell through. But the fourth was a keeper.
And if there’s ever a busted pipe and the carpet is ruined,
the new owners will discover when they peel it off, perhaps with the assistance of the front bumper of a Suburban, the
most beautifully-painted
subfloor in the entire neighborhood.
aaaaaaaaaa
~*~
Dannelle Woody (Carpet Diem) is a Christian jewelry designer, silversmith and
co-author of Babes With A Beatitude—Devotions For Smart Savvy Women of Faith. http://www.dannellewoodyjewelry.com
For the next two weeks, AND STARTING TODAY, I am going to post whole stories or excerpts from the book with shots and bios of the authors.
And I hope you will love Moving Tales, Adventures in Relocation as much as I do!
If you or somebody you know is packing up for a migration across town, across the country or around the world, Moving Tales, Adventures in Relocation, offers a welcome diversion to the broken dishes, lost furniture and everything else that always seems to go wrong during a move. The lighthearted, and sometimes unbelievably true stories of those who’ve moved in, moved out and moved on, will move your heart and lift your spirits.
Linda Kozar is the
co-author of Babes With A Beatitude—Devotions For Smart, Savvy Women of
Faith (Hardcover/Ebook, Howard/Simon & Schuster 2009) and author of Misfortune
Cookies (Print, Barbour Publishing 2008), Misfortune Cookies, A
Tisket, A Casket, and Dead As A Doornail, (“When The Fat Ladies Sing
Series,” eBooks, Spyglass Lane Mysteries, 2012). Her latest novel Strands of
Fate released October 2012 (Hardcover/Ebook, Creative Woman Mysteries). She
received the ACFW Mentor of the Year Award in 2007, founded and served as
president of Writers On The Storm,
The Woodlands, Texas ACFW chapter for three years. In 2003, she co-founded,
co-directed and later served as Southwest Texas Director of Words For The Journey Christian Writers
Guild. She and her husband Michael, married 24 years, have two lovely
daughters, Katie and Lauren and a Rat Terrier princess named Patches.
Represented by: Wendy Lawton, Books & Such Literary Agency
Member of: CAN (Christian
Authors Network), RWA (Romance Writers of American), WHRWA (West Houston
Romance Writers of America), ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers), Writers
On The Storm, The Woodlands, Texas Chapter of ACFW, Toastmasters (Area 56) The
Woodlands, Texas, The Woodlands Church, The Woodlands, TX.
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