It was a balmy day.
No—slightly cloudy.
Whatever—don’t all interesting events happen with the clouds reporting?
Anyways, it was evening, and the clouds couldn’t see anyway. It had been a blah day at work for me, and ended with talking on the phone to some relatives to share some good news. Conversation flowed back and forth, but I couldn’t get reception in the garage while my husband pulled in coming home from work. So back into my study I went.
It must have been five to seven minutes later when I heard my husband yell the loudest curse word, clear enough to reach through the insulation in our thick walls. He flung open the garage door and marched into my study covered in oil stains with an exasperated look. Then he immediately peeled off clothing layers in the kitchen on his way to the bedroom. There, a fresh set of clothes called to him before stomping back into the fray.
I finished talking with the fam and followed out into the garage. An oil container had exploded (he didn’t run it over) all over the back wall, the ceiling, the back of his car, and all down the front of his clothes. Fortunately he hadn’t been wearing his nice jacket.
We spent the night washing his car, and my car too where oil splattered on it and poured kitty litter over the spill. We painted walls and ceiling the coming weekend.
But that wasn’t the most hilarious and interesting part.
Oil covered the front half of one of his steel-toed cowboy dress boots, which he faithfully wore to work every day. After the night of car washing was completed and he’d hopped in the shower, I scrubbed his boot to get the oil stains off as best I could. Everything seemed fine.
Except in the morning that brown boot was white. Cue back-up shoes.
I went into town and bought brown shoe polish, and he lathered with it the next morning before heading off to work. But did you know, when you strip a boot of most of its oils, that one coating of shoe polish doesn’t fix the issue? Once he was back to work, his boot was white again within thirty minutes—he wore one brown and one white boot around the buildings. His co-workers had questions.
What’s needed to keep shoe polish in is mink oil. When he put that coat on top of the polish color stayed on, keeping the boot brown. But during its reign that white boot just added to his frustration level.
Positives: I got a really nice “project” shirt out of the ordeal: his favorite purple wear covered in oil splotches. And the wall and ceiling painting went really well—mostly only one coat was needed.
Sometimes oil spills on your life, and you have every right to get frustrated. But you can’t let the oil soak—you need to clean up what you can right away and then solve what comes up down the road. You can’t plan for all life’s hiccups, but you can try your darndest to respond in the best way possible.
Updates for me: Next week is Spring Break! I haven’t been keeping up with my two editing projects lately, so that’s on my agenda. Then there are a few work projects, house projects, and a must: front porch moments with my camping chair and lots of tea! Thinking topics for the week: the triboelectric effect; cat poems; homemade petri dishes; and Halloween cats.
Hope the weather is nice where you are, dear readers!