We sure had us a cold spell here in the Carolinas over the weekend. It got down into the 60s during the day, which, lest you laugh at me, is remarkably cold for the coast this time of year.
We went back to do a little more clean up at our old house, and, not even paying attention to the weather Friday morning, I only packed shorts and T-shirts for everyone for the weekend. We picked the boys up right from school that afternoon and headed out, so it was not until we stopped at the loo halfway that I realized how the temperature had dropped.
Had we stayed in Chicago, this would not have been an issue for the small people, as temperatures in the 60s do not mean there what they do here.
But we didn’t, and since my oldest moved to Carolina when he was barely two, my middle child moved here when he was six weeks old, and my youngest was born here, they are essentially Southern little folks, with, among other things, Southern comfort levels when it comes to temperature.
This meant, therefore, that they A.) stepped out of the minivan and thought winter was upon us, and B.) thought their mother was extremely absentminded to have forgotten to pack wool, fleece and parkas.
Well, they were right about the absentminded part.
So sue me.
But really, underneath the tough façade I tried to maintain in an effort to hold on to the last vestiges of my Chicago heritage, I was a big, giant wuss. After remarking to LCB no less than a dozen times about how surprising it was to be greeted with such nippy weather at this time of the year, in a voice with forced perkiness that made me sound like a Florida retiree with a penchant for bright floral polyester, I gave up and conceded that cold was no longer my element. And truthfully, it’s a concession I’ve made every year in Carolina for several years now. I just tend to be forgetful sometimes, like after a long, warm summer.
So be it.
Anyway, Saturday was cooler and cloudy for about 70% of the day, looking like this:
so I wasn’t as tempted to spend time on the beach as I usually am, which helped me finish many of the tasks I needed to do to restore my home to its pre-tenant splendor.
Then, just when the sun did finally pop out, in the afternoon, the carpet cleaner arrived, so I spent the better part of the afternoon vacillating between blogging and watching the transformation of my carpets.
They were pretty trashed from the tenants, as evidenced by their appearance, the fact that it took him twice as long to clean them as it normally does, and the fact that he promised me he was using the strongest stuff he legally could but that they would still not be perfect in the end.
Then, in an attempt to comfort me, he told me some “it could have been worse†stories about other houses on the island that had sustained further tenant damage than mine. Like, a group of students who rented some poor house (a violation of the contract the tenants signed, which specified family groups with adults of a certain age) who decided to have a spaghetti fight all over the house. When he was called in, he said spaghetti was caked on just about every surface in the house.
Unbelievable.
And the truth is, over the years I’ve heard stories about summer tenants that have been far, far worse.
Maybe we could have an eye-for-an-eye law for people like that. So, in the case of the spaghetti-fighters, in a few years, after the students have graduated and bought their first houses and have them all fixed up, the owners of the spaghetti-trashed house could send over their small people, armed with Super Soakers filled with marinara sauce. If their small people aren’t game, I know mine would be.
I’m awful.
But hey, you might as well at least have fun with it.
In the end, the carpets were at least sanitized and drastically cleaner in appearance after he was done, and by the end of the evening, I had finish my list of things to be cleaned, fixed, and repainted for the weekend.
And by Sunday afternoon, as we were leaving, the beach was back to its normal September resplendence,
leaving all of us eager to return, Mr. Chicken Legs himself most of all.
