I DISCOVER A NEW ROOM!

It’s been years actually. 30 if you want to be exact. It is so old that seeing it again makes it feel like it is new!

In the 30 years we have been living in my house, we have had 2 occupants of the back bedroom.  Except for an occasional foray into no-man’s land, to clean mainly and prevent the rest of the house from being overtaken by dirty laundry, no one except the occupant has entered the room. When TLW (The Little Woman) would dare to enter and clean, I would tie a rope around her waist and wish her luck, and in she’d go, rubber gloves on: broom in hand and determination to brave it all. If she was in danger at any time of being overcome by a gaggle of dirty socks or old composition papers, she would tug on the rope and I would start pulling her back to safety.

Then one day, the original occupant of said room decided to marry and live far away. When he came to visit, we would put the happy couple in a small guest bedroom with a pullout couch that converts to a full size bed for two. But is was cramped and so TLW decided that she wanted to go for broke and evict the occupant of the back bedroom, move him into the guest room as a subtle suggestion and have a new guest bedroom, telling the evicted occupant that we now have TWO GUEST bedrooms and how long did he plan on staying?

And so the excavation process began. I wanted to hire an archeologist to tell us what to look for and to tell us how to catalogue any ancient artifacts we might come across.  Moving and switching furniture is a process, one that upsets the karma of the household, leading to questions of: why did we start this?

I can see forever!

After intensive digging and removal, we discovered in the new guest room that we indeed had a floor, ending the argument that I had lost it when I said she had it last. Finally the day came and the room was completely cleared. Together, hand in hand we entered it for the first time since we looked at buying the house and on the clear floors and unpainted walls, danced to the tune of Save the Last dance for Me.

Then the trouble started.

TLW: We need to paint, Joe! And, the floors should be redone, they are wood and I love shiny wooden clean floors!

Me: Sniff.

TOMORROW: Carlos returns!