Dot Calm

As the custodian of my parents’ San Diego home away from home, there are a few housekeeping chores on my agenda before their return to it this weekend. Today I completed a number of them before settling on the largest one: cleaning the carpets. Oh, I love cleaning carpets! I’m good at it; anal and thorough and thrilled with the results, I’m your man – er, woman – for carpet cleaning.

At first, I didn’t know where to rent a cleaner in San Diego. Points should be awarded to the marketing department at Rug Doctor, then, for instilling in me brand recall and for having a rental locator on their website. I whisked away to the local Von’s Grocery store, rented the machine, and set to work.

Early in the process, I was concerned that the machine wasn’t working. The upper tank was collecting the cleanest dirty water I’d ever seen. It was not black, not brown, not even a healthy grey, but something just murkier than tap water. In my fifteen years of carpet cleaning, I’d had no experience with this phenomenon. And then it hit me. No pets. I hate to encourage the policy, but I have to admit, it makes an incredible difference.

It took no more than an hour to have the whole place done, but I like to do the job twice to be sure. And, besides, I reveled in the idea that I might be disturbing the late-night rollicking neighbors downstairs. Having finished off the bottle of cleaning fluid, and ready to pack up and pat myself on the back, I made the last minute decision to move the dining table and take a sweep underneath. The Rug Doctor was just a wee too tall to fit beneath it. And so I did. And, boy, was that a mistake!

With one movement of the table over the moist carpet surrounding it, the black table legs began to bleed an inky purple. Stain! Streaks of stain marked the progress of the Crate & Barrel table over my freshly cleaned carpets, which were suddenly dirtier than when I’d begun. And these were no ordinary household spills – they call that stuff “stain” for a reason.

I moved the table back into position, set the legs on paper towels, and spent the next few hours rifling through cleaning products. Could “Shout” take it out? Would hairspray remove the ink? What about Spray-n-Wash? Lysol? I tried every single one. In time, the water tank filled with a satisfying black and the stains were gone.

There’s a Crate & Barrel coffee table sitting on the balcony. And it’ll stay there until the floors are dry.