How I Spent My Summer Vacation - Day #1

It’s day #1 of a long needed vacation from work and days two through eight will be spent at home but thankfully so. Now on to the exciting tale of my first day. Most of you know of the every other week treks I make to North Carolina to check on and do for my stepfather. It’s about a six hour round trip drive (not counting the times when he has doctors appointments which are at least 45 minutes away from his home). In any event, I left this morning at the crack o’ dawn so I could get to the other side of Atlanta before the rush hour really began. As I drove into the driveway and saw that the shade on the door was still down and the door locked, I began to worry a tad. He’s usually always up before 9am. Luckily the sliding glass door was partially open (there is a cat door in the sliding screen door for Miss Kitty who is a whole other story) so I was able to get in. I quietly tiptoed to his bedroom door watching the sheets to be sure he was still breathing (thank you God!)…he is 87 after all. While he slept I gathered up the bills, bank statement, and checkbook and had them almost done when he awoke. On to the pillbox and refills while he drank his coffee. Oh wait – I promised exciting didn’t I?

Frank’s little house is very compact – a tiny kitchen/dining/living room, two small bedrooms, and a bathroom. One of the bedrooms is used for storage – it used to be where my mother kept all of her yarns and threads – she was a weaver. In any event, while I was at the kitchen table I kept getting this faint whiff of something not too pleasant. When I went into the spare room there was a horrible over-whelming smell and I thought Miss Kitty had either deposited a gift or brought in a gift (which she does on an almost daily basis). Ole Frank said “Oh yes, I’ve been smelling that but didn’t see anything.”

OK, hold your breath (I certainly was by that time or at least breathing through my mouth) here comes the exciting part. On the wall shelves where extra canned goods, etc. were stored….well…..have you ever smelled or seen a bag of potatoes that was mostly juice? I thought I was going to pass out from the smell! Finally got that sucker into a big garbage bag – not very gracefully either…then had to scrub the wall and floor where they had dripped, clean off cans where they had run, WASH bottles of BOOST that had been dripped upon.

Oh no, we aren’t to the exciting part yet….really! These shelves are the rubber coated wire type and Frank had put a very thin piece of some type of wood over the top one – I guess so things wouldn’t fall through. Well I knew that lovely potato juice would have soaked it through and it needed to go. So off that shelf came everything (along with a bag of flour that, shall we say, was beginning to look like it was inside out. Not sure what was happening with that but it went in the garbage bag with the potatoes) and I lifted up that thin piece of wood – are you ready? Really ready? For the exciting part?

Can you say maggots? Ewwwwwwwwww ewwwwwwwww ewwwwwwwwwww! I’m telling you I nearly died, very vocally, as I ran through that tiny house to get that thing out of the house and onto the garbage pile. And then I had to clean the ones that were on the wire shelf off – ewwwwwwwwww ewwwwwwwww ewwwwwwwwwww. I don't DO maggots - I don't even want to LOOK AT maggots!  Anything not in a can is banned from that room!

Now tell me – could I have had a more perfect vacation day? Bwahahahahahahahahaha!