In general life is great! Totally great! Super-great! SiC and I are turning over a new, healthy, in-bed-early-on-school-nights sort of leaf. SiC has even quit smoking, which is making him act like he’s overdosing on dodgy speed: good entertainment when there’s nothing on telly, but I’m a bit worried that all the violent twitching might be hard on his joints.
The flat is great! Slightly hot in this weather but otherwise great! Yesterday, despite my crippling hangover (what was that about going to bed early during the week? I forget!), I decided to be a good housewife (I can’t believe I just said that) and spruce the place up a bit. To start with I bought a couple of doorstops, because the bedroom doors are rigged to slam closed with a heart-stopping BANG! the second they’re released, which is not much fun when you’re generally high-strung and also have a crippling hangover. In the hardware store I stood very still for a few moments to feel the blessed draughts of sweet sweet air conditioning wafting against my throbbing skull, then returned home with a set of plastic doorstops. I jammed them under the offending doors and turned to my next task: mopping!
The previous tenants considerately left a layer of filth on the floors thick enough to turn our feet black within minutes entering the flat. SiC and I had quickly addressed the problem, running down to the local discount shop and purchasing a mop. “Excellent!” we said to ourselves. “Now we can clean the floors!” We got all the way back to the flat before realising that we had failed to purchase a) a bucket or b) any sort of cleaning product. We RULE at this domesticity thing. Anyway, this slight obstacle now overcome, I set about mopping the floors.
I filled the bucket with hot water and floor cleaner, soaked the mop and pulled the lever to wring it out. The rollers immediately ripped off the mop head. I swore a bit and, after careful consideration, decided to replace the mop head. This should have been easy, but turned out to be a matter of unscrewing a whole bunch of tiny (soapy) screws. I propped the mop in the sink, roundly insulted its mother, and, naturally not having a screwdriver to hand, attempted to remove the screws with a kitchen knife. The mop slipped out of my grasp and nearly knocked a pile of dirty dishes off the counter. Eventually I separated the mop head from the handle, soaking myself to the elbows in the process, and attached a replacement head, only using half the necessary screws because FUCK THIS MY HEAD HURTS. Back to mopping! The mop head was wobbly because half the screws were still in the sink, which meant that I came dangerously close to ripping huge gashes in the floor with the metal handle, but never mind! I made it to the spare bedroom, upon which I discovered that the doorstops I’d purchased were not real doorstops at all but rather novelty joke doorstops: the second I stepped anywhere near the door, the plastic stop would pop out and the door would BANG! shut, heedless of any elbows or fingers in its path. I attempted to reason with the door (“FUCK YOU, FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!”), jammed it open as best I could and continued my (by now rather half-assed) attempt at cleaning.
At the end of this little vaudeville routine the floors were about 25% cleaner and my hangover was about 75% worse. I briefly considered trying to unplug the sink (thanks again, previous tenants! Hope you moved back to the zoo where you belong!), but then I remembered that I am not a licensed plumber. Also I figured it might not be a good idea to attempt home repair whilst channelling Lucille Ball. (“ROBIN! You got some ‘splaining to do!”) I decided to tackle something more comfortably within my skill set: watching TV and feeling sorry for myself.
Later on I cooked dinner. And then we ended up going out for a curry. I think it’s time I got a job.