Let me tell you a little story. It relates to the post I made about it being easier to clean other people's houses, and particularly a comment
westrider made on that post. Our story starts this morning, around 10 a.m., right after I finished my coffee...
"What shall I work on today?" I asked myself. "Self," I replied, "We should start with that pile of sheet music and lyrics that's been steadily growing in the living room, moving from place to place every time someone actually wants to sit somewhere." "Great idea! It's only about a half-hour job. The three hole punch and the music binders are right there. Piece of cake!"
So I walked out into the living room, and decided (I think understandably) that if I was going to be sitting on the floor spreading paper hither and yon, I'd rather the floor be clean.
Out came the vacuum cleaner. But what's this? The canister is full! Ah well, no matter. Out to the trash bin with the full canister I go -- only to discover that it is so full that the lid is wedged and it's not actually openable.
"I know!" thought I, "I'll use the shop vac to suck some of the cat hair out of the input hole, and thusly free the locking mechanism." So off to the garage for the shop-vac. Now, there aren't any outlets in my garage, so one must use an extension cord for the shop vac. The extension cord has a three prong (grounded) plug, which presents an inconvenience, as the nearest 3-prong outlet is in the kitchen. "But hell," I thought, "I've been wanting to rewire the laundry room outlet anyway." So it's back to the garage for the toolbox.
As I was wrestling with the outlet (really, whomever decided to make modern wire boxes bigger and not black, so you can actually A) fit all the wires in and B) see what you're doing? You have my deepest thanks. I wish you'd come along sooner) I heard Calliope mewing piteously outside the laundry room door. I opened the door, looking about at cat-height to see where she'd gone, and in so doing the door bumped the level on the shelf, which bumped the screw-nail-miscellanea-bits-in-drawers organizer, and knocked the latter off the shelf.
Upside down.
Into the litter box.
...at which point I said "Well, fuck," and went back to wiring the outlet.
The only really remarkable thing about this chain of events is that I managed to successfully reverse the whole chain (including sifting wire nails, drywall screws, and picture hooks out of kitty litter) all the way back to vacuuming the living room, before I sat down to eat lunch and write this post.
I doubt I'll get the music organized today, though.
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"What shall I work on today?" I asked myself. "Self," I replied, "We should start with that pile of sheet music and lyrics that's been steadily growing in the living room, moving from place to place every time someone actually wants to sit somewhere." "Great idea! It's only about a half-hour job. The three hole punch and the music binders are right there. Piece of cake!"
So I walked out into the living room, and decided (I think understandably) that if I was going to be sitting on the floor spreading paper hither and yon, I'd rather the floor be clean.
Out came the vacuum cleaner. But what's this? The canister is full! Ah well, no matter. Out to the trash bin with the full canister I go -- only to discover that it is so full that the lid is wedged and it's not actually openable.
"I know!" thought I, "I'll use the shop vac to suck some of the cat hair out of the input hole, and thusly free the locking mechanism." So off to the garage for the shop-vac. Now, there aren't any outlets in my garage, so one must use an extension cord for the shop vac. The extension cord has a three prong (grounded) plug, which presents an inconvenience, as the nearest 3-prong outlet is in the kitchen. "But hell," I thought, "I've been wanting to rewire the laundry room outlet anyway." So it's back to the garage for the toolbox.
As I was wrestling with the outlet (really, whomever decided to make modern wire boxes bigger and not black, so you can actually A) fit all the wires in and B) see what you're doing? You have my deepest thanks. I wish you'd come along sooner) I heard Calliope mewing piteously outside the laundry room door. I opened the door, looking about at cat-height to see where she'd gone, and in so doing the door bumped the level on the shelf, which bumped the screw-nail-miscellanea-bits-in-drawers organizer, and knocked the latter off the shelf.
Upside down.
Into the litter box.
...at which point I said "Well, fuck," and went back to wiring the outlet.
The only really remarkable thing about this chain of events is that I managed to successfully reverse the whole chain (including sifting wire nails, drywall screws, and picture hooks out of kitty litter) all the way back to vacuuming the living room, before I sat down to eat lunch and write this post.
I doubt I'll get the music organized today, though.