The
events depicted in this story are not fictitious. Any similarity to any person
living or dead is not coincidental. Parts
not affecting the outcome of the story may have been edited.
At the
end of June, we were given the opportunity to housesit for a month. One of Neil’s workmates was going overseas to
get married, and then embarking on a honeymoon for a month; so if we wanted it,
his place was ours. We jumped at the
chance for more than one reason; to give us some more living space, to enable
Murmie to escape her prison and set paw on some grass, and not least of all to
save a bit of money.
Neil’s
contract pays for either accommodation in a motel or $430 a week for rent; as
the rent on offer was $370 a week, Neil would net around $240 for the
month. Also, as I no longer needed to
pay the additional motel accommodation for the school holidays, I was saving
approximately $490.
Unfortunately,
in just under two weeks, we’ve caused around $1,317.00 worth of damage.
Within
minutes of arriving at her new open-plan prison, Murmie was off doing a
reccie. Thinking she’d be fine and it
would be pointless to follow her around, I went off to unpack some bags and get
dinner ready. Neil and I walked back
into the lounge at the same time, to be greeted by the sight of Murmie halfway
up a net curtain. Upside down. Simultaneously yelling at her while lunging
at her to get down was probably not wise given her skittish nature, but I
panicked.
So did
Murmie.
As the
weight of her attempted dash ripped a hole in the net curtain, she dropped
lower, let go of the curtain, and clawed at the air until her she managed to
lodge them into a solid object to slow her fall. As she slid down the leather couch, we could
only watch on helplessly and hope that we could buy brown nugget at the
supermarket.
Net
curtain $30.00
Nugget $4.50
or
Leather
couch repairs $3,200.00
By 5pm
on our second night here, I’d completely unpacked, cooked dinner, done the
washing, called the kids and played Facebook games for six hours, so I decided
to set up a nice surprise for Neil when he got home.
[Spoiler
alert: this is not a “Shades of Grey”
copy-cat]
I ran
him a bath, poured him a red wine, and when he got home pulled all his clothes
off [OK, in hindsight, maybe HE thought it was going to get “Shades of Grey”]
and sent him straight to the bathroom for a well deserved soak.
I’d expected
I’d be able to leave him to his own devices without too much trouble. Perhaps I should have learned my lesson when
Maz was three and painted Briar’s face and butt green that’s it not a good idea
to leave inquisitive beings in the bath unsupervised.
I used
to put them in the bath and let them paint on the walls. Easy to clean – both them and the walls – and
no stains on the carpet. The life
lessons I learnt back then were:
a) it’s quite difficult to get paint out of the
hair of a rambunctious 12 month old;
b) paint
brushes used as weapons by 3 year olds can leave quite a welt on the butt of a
rambunctious 12 month old.
And, for those people dialling 0800 CYFS, I didn’t actually ever leave them in the bath unsupervised. Well, not back then; but I had to eventually. I don’t think at 15 Maz would appreciate me washing her hair and blowing raspberries on her tummy.
Anyway,
back in this decade - I’m in the kitchen getting ready to dish up dinner, when
I hear the old familiar “..uh oh...”, followed
by the same sort of silence experienced in OJ Simpson’s house.
In his
defence, the bath mixer did appear to be corroded right around the
circumference; but the prosecutor would probably argue his sworn statement that
he just “touched it just a little bit” with his toe. When the entire thing fell into the bath and
sank to the bottom, he claimed to be as shocked as OJ at this turn of events.
Bath
mixer $100.00
The
next day, I set about getting the girls’ rooms ready, and I recalled seeing
some net curtains in a bag in the linen cupboard. I got them out and measured them up for each
room, deciding which would go where, when I noticed they smelt a bit
funny. Deciding a quick wash would bring
them up again was in fact very accurate.
A quick wash made them appear like a dingo had brought them up. Via his oesophagus.
Net
curtains x3 $90.00
As I
busied myself ruining all the house fittings, Murmie quickly relished having a
backyard to explore. Despite my
reservations about uninvited visitors, we left the security screen door open
during the day, and the laundry window at night time, with her litter tray
inside just in case. I tried to tell her
that it probably wasn’t a wise move poking her little paws into the ventilation
holes in the house foundations, but she totally ignored me. My fear of a snake grabbing her or a huntsman
coming out on top of her paw was slightly less than my fear of a snake
grabbing me or a huntsman coming out on top of my hand, so I left her to learn her
lesson the hard way.
Feeling
happy that she was comfortable outside, we didn’t pay too much attention to her
ablutions. I’ve expended enough energy
on those activities in the last four months, so it was nice to finally have a
break.
That’s
why it came as a complete surprise to us when, on night 3, Murms wandered into
the lounge, threw a casual glance in our direction, then peed in the corner of
the lounge right beside the TV and home theatre system. When she finished, she
walked out again without even a backwards glance.
DIY
Carpet Cleaning Machine $50.00
On day
four, I heard a car pull up the drive then there was a knock at the door. No one official knew we were house-sitting
for The Workmate, and I wasn’t too keen to blow his cover. Peeking out the window, I saw a Tradesman’s ute. And A Tradesman. Unable to ignore the door, but at the same
time unable to quickly explain my presence, I opened it a little and peered out
like those Crazy-Cat-Ladies on movies.
“Hi….”
“Gidday
love! I’m here to fix the front door!”
I look
at the fully-functioning front door, the edge of which is still pressed against
my face.
“The
property manager sent me around.
Apparently the Landlord wants a new door put on and I’m here to measure
the old one!”
Sweet. So this dude is neither a) the landlord, nor
b) the property manager. He has no idea
who the tenant is, and he doesn’t need to know who I am or that I don’t belong
here.
“Uh,
hi. I’m Karolyn… I don’t actually live here;
we’re just house-sitting for the tenant who is away getting married. Please don’t tell on us for having a cat
here.”
He
glances through the small gap at the living room which is devoid of any feline presence. Glances back at me, glances through the gap
again, then back at me.
Only
then do I realise that not only am I still in my pajamas at 12.15pm, I’m also
adorned in my dressing gown, Neil’s work socks and a scarf that I finished
knitting about three minutes before he turned up. And my hair looks like Adam Lambert’s on a
no-wash day.
“So,
hahaha, gosh, look at me, how rude, please excuse me still in my PJs, hahaha
I’m so lazy, I’ve had a hard week and GOSH, this cold weather makes it so hard
to get up in the morning, although the cat on the bed helps, she really loves
being in a house, it’s so much warmer here than NZ though, so I should be
thankful, although it’s colder than it has been lately, wow, when we first
moved here it was sooo warm, I was on the balcony drinking wine by 2pm EVERY
afternoon!”
Nicely
played, I nod to myself.
A Tradesman
looks worried and is slowly backing away from the door, glancing from his car
to the neighbour’s house.
“Sorry,
sorry, come in. I’m sorry, please,
measure the door. I’ll go and get
changed and leave you to it”.
So now
I’ve told him I’m going to take my clothes off.
Two minutes
later I remember that our bath spout is broken and realise that this handyman
might come in handy. Wondering how I’m
going to redeem myself with him, unable to offer him a shrimp on the bar-b or a
beer, I offer him a cup of tea.
Thankfully
he’s not suspicious being roofied, and takes me up on my offer. I take the opportunity to down another
caffeine hit to calm my nerves about getting snapped and I manage to hold up my
end of a normal conversation. We sealed
the new friendship by scoffing at the landlord and his new door. We could see nothing wrong with the front
door being replaced, yet the back door was rotting, didn’t close properly, and
for some weird reason had fresh cat claw marks on the outside.
Little
did I know this would be the start of a mutually beneficial relationship.
By the
time he leaves I’ve convinced him to come back and fix the bath spout while
he’s replacing the door.
Cover
blown with Property $Priceless
Manager
After
my hard day of subterfuge and seamless integration into the role of
Legal-House-Occupier, I decided I deserved a cider. Thankfully, Neil had also decided he deserved
one just for working that day and had picked up something special on his way
home. It cost a little bit more than
your normal everyday cider, but it’s a lovely drop and well worth every cent. For this reason, I felt obliged to slurp most
of it back up from the leather couch when the entire bottle spilt over, only
missing the couple of hundred mls that fell through the Murmie-made slashes.
Leather
couch treatment $150.00
Even
though Neil and I had both voiced our dissatisfaction with the blatant flouting
of house rules, Murms seemed to have started as she meant to go on. Not once did we ever tell her it was
acceptable to go outside, eat grass, come back inside, reproduce the grass in it’s entire mass on the
floor, then walk back outside to hide in the chilli bush. I can only assume that she found this
activity – and the ensuing panic, gagging and yelling – somewhat amusing,
because she did it five times.
Vomit
on carpet in five rooms $50.00
Once
the girls arrived, the house was a thriving hub of activity. Most of it at 0600am when I was trying to
sleep, but I did promise them when they were born that I’d love them no matter
what, so I had to suck it up.
That,
and just a little bit because it meant Ty would get into bed with me and
snuggle for a while, then make me a coffee.
But mostly because I love them.
One
particular morning, Briar found it quite an abomination that I wouldn’t let her
have a turn on my laptop, even despite the fact that Tyra was halfway through a
very serious exercise. She was
flinging those birds better than I ever could and we were about to beat Lisa’s
high score.
Voicing
her dissatisfaction in words that mean the same as “Mum, I’m very disappointed
that I can’t have a turn, this also makes me quite angry, please be quiet Tyra your
hair is a little dishevelled and you’re not looking your best, Mum you resemble
a female bovine and you can both go and have intercourse”, she walked out of
the room, slamming the door behind her.
Unfortunately,
although she would testify that she only closed it and that we’re all making
this up and somehow, amazingly, the door must have taken that moment to
deteriorate through fair wear-and-tear, the door ripped off it’s hinges.
Well,
not all the hinges, I’m exaggerating slightly.
Just the top hinge. So instead of
being broken nice and level, the door is now on a lean and no matter how much I
swear, push and yell, it’s just not going to close.
Door
hinge & screws $20.00
That
night, because I’m still traumatised by the carnage in our house and can’t possibly
be expected to cook, we took the girls out for Thai. I found myself incredibly amusing making
Ty-Thai jokes but for some reason no one else thought I was as funny as I
did. I think they must have been Tyred.
Neil
especially because he wasn’t his usual merry self. So much so that when he left the room Maz
asked me if he had his period. I told
her to stop being so immature. Of course
he didn’t. It was PMT and you get that
the week beforehand.
There
was some degree of PMT happening that night - “Pay my Thai”. For some inexplicable reason I’d left my
wallet at home, but it’s entirely coincidental that we all ordered entrees and
I had the seafood special for my main.
In
fact, so much food was brought out that we were unable to finish it all, so it
was packed into little takeaway containers for us to enjoy the next day. Upon arriving home, I put the bag down so I
could show Neil the damaged door (might as well hit him while he’s down) and
completely forgot about it until bedtime.
Unfortunately,
as is quite reasonable to expect every now and then, I had absent-mindedly put
the Thai food down on the bed. I think
the good quality seafood in my dinner might have compromised their budget for
packing materials, because the red curry sauce had leaked from the container,
through the bag and onto the bed. So now,
at about hip level, we had a nice red stain on the nice new bed.
Mattress
protector $60.00
Upholstery
tool on Rug Doctor $15.00
Having
been inspired by the Bed-Wrecking-Thai-Restaurant on our last visit, I’d made
some curry puffs on my first day in the house.
Neil, when trying them for the first time, had looked at me completely
awestruck, like some kind of Curry God, so figuring they were good I’d put some
in the freezer to have with the girls.
A few
nights after our Bed-Wrecking-Thai, we felt the tug of an addict needing a
curry hit, so I got them out of the freezer and planned to cook the entire
batch up for some pre-dinner snacks.
Who
could have expected that the little sieve in the utensil drawer was made of
plastic and not metal like most normal sieves?
Thankfully there wasn’t much of a plastic tasting taint to our snacks,
and once I picked off the melted blobs from the outside, none of them were any
the wiser.
New
sieve $7.00
All
the curry must have made the girls thirsty, because all the juice in the fridge
disappeared like it had been zapped in a holocaust. And although none of my girls have had
accidents since they were about two, there’s clearly only so much juice that
one small bladder can hold. So it came
to pass that for the first time in about ten years, at 0200hrs I was woken by
one girl, standing in the doorway half shielded by the fallen door, unable to
get into the room to tell me what had happened.
“It’s
OK sweetheart” I said, thinking back fondly to my military work mates. “I know grown men that this happens to
frequently…”
Changing
the bed without waking the other girl sleeping in it was next to impossible so after
sorting the girl out, we did the Lets-Cover-This-With-Ten-Towels trick and I vowed
to clean it in the morning. Only when
morning arrived, and I was laying the mattress out in the sun did I remember
that The Workmate was returning home soon to this exact bed. With his new wife.
Upholstery
on Rug Doctor Part 2 $15.00
The
next day, the house is having one of those rare, yet relatively peaceful,
argument-free moments. No one is calling
anyone fat and ugly; there’s no hitting; and there’s no accusations of being
adopted.
Then I
remember what silence usually means.
Oldest
– in her bedroom on her laptop.
Check.
Youngest
– in the bath singing some Pitbull song to Murmie.
Check.
Middle
– in the shower, but instead of yelling at me to “get out”, “go away”, “stop looking”
and “don’t be a pevert”, she’s just standing there.
Uncheck.
“Mum,
owwwwwww, my head, owwwwwwww, frick, that hurt so much OMFG owww Mum, aren’t
you going to ask me if I’m OK????”
“What
did you break, Briar?”
Much
like’s Neil’s defence, she insisted that all she did was bend down to pick up
her razor, and when standing, the soap dish that sticks out of the wall hit her
head on the way up, snapped at the wall-mounting point, and smashed into
smithereens on the shower floor.
This
soapdish is TILED into the rest of the tiled shower recess. Or was.
Thanking
my horoscopes that I made such a good impression with A Tradesman, I causally
mention it to him on his next visit, along with the words “cash” and “please
don’t mention this to the letting agency, landlord, neighbours or anyone else
that lives in Richmond” and thankfully… he has tiling experience.
Soap
dish and labour $30.00
While
retelling my soap-dish story to Neil, after plying him with some expensive
cider and the promise of another bath, I casually lean back in my seat to
convey to him that it’s really no big deal.
Problem all solved. It’s not my
fault that my coffee cup from 11 hours earlier was still sitting by my feet,
one of the girls should have definitely clean it up by now.
Coffee
on carpet $50.00
By now
I’m thinking we should have just bought a Rug Doctor.
When I
first found out we were housesitting, I was excited by the mere fact that I
could buy than one night’s worth of meals, and in a totally luxurious move, would
even be able to freeze stuff. This was
what led to the 14 shopping bags full of food that I know had to sort in some
fashionable sense in the new big fridge at our disposal.
Being
just a teeny bit OCD meant I had already earmarked the top pull-out sealed
compartment for my dips and other miscellaneous deli items. Cheese, but not the block stuff. Veges, but only the small deli punnets, not
the large whole items.
When
deciding for the fourth time that I wasn’t happy with the layout, the pull-out
drawer got stuck. Yelling at Neil –
because somehow it was now his problem – he did the usual engineer thing and said
he’d fix it soon.
4 seconds
later I was sick of waiting so I did what most girls do when faced with a
mechanical problem.
I
slammed the fridge door shut hoping it would fix itself.
When I
opened it again, I was delighted to discover that my method had worked and the
drawer was back where it belonged. The
two little plastic lugs that fell out when I opened it were inconsequential,
although Neil apparently thought otherwise.
New
fridge compartment $120.00
We
decided at this point that we should probably cut our losses and leave if just
one more thing broke.
It
only took the girls a day to make themselves at home and be fully relaxed in
The Workmate’s house. Which, briefly
defined, means there were hair straighteners, hair curlers, hair dryers, hair
ties and mascara everywhere. More so
than Neil normally leaves lying around.
Being
beautiful comes at a price, so our days normally began with around… say… three
hours of prep work by two of the girls.
I won’t name which two, but Ty and I got to spend a fair amount of
quality time alone together.
Obviously,
it’s not at all possible for two sisters to share one large bathroom mirror, so
I had assumed they were taking turns at hogging the bathroom.
One
night, after a particularly disturbing discussion about Human Centipedes, ghosts,
and Wolf Creek…
[NB: the only movie ever which I’ve had to stop
watching, at night time in the dark while living in a little sleep-out at
Masterton Airport, and finish watching the next morning when the sun was
shining with all the curtains wide open and 111 pre-dialled on my mobile]
…all
five of us were standing in the kitchen when there was an almighty bang
followed by a shattering sound. Fight or
flight kicked in and I apologised later to my family for leaving Neil to handle
the girls while I took refuge under the Double-Thai-Stained-Bed in the
Broken-Door-Room without even a backwards glance.
Upon
investigation, we found the original art piece Mirror-With-Fish-And-Shellfish-Paintings
on the floor in pieces.
“What
the F*#K??” I yell, as Briar poses the
same question and I tell her off for her language. “How the bloody hell did THAT happen?”
Looking
around, waiting for Freddy or Jason to appear, we ponder this for a moment,
then Neil has the intelligence to pick up the mirror – or what’s left of it - and
check the back.
A
simple explanation would transpire, in that the string on the back had rotted
and worn through, causing it to fall from the wall. I was still a bit sceptical, thinking perhaps
Freddy had replaced the string while we weren’t looking just to lure us into the
dark hallway, but Briar fessed up and said she’d been taking the mirror off the
wall and using it in her room.
Irreplaceable
One-of-A-Kind Mirror $200.00
After
seeing the girls off from their week’s holiday with us, I relaxed in the
comfort of knowing that the damage had been done and things couldn’t possibly
get any worse in The House of The Workmate.
To make
the most of our last night with a real kitchen, I decided to make a bacon and
egg pie. Even though Aussie doesn’t have
the beautiful streaky bacon that us Kiwis take for granted, I was confident I
could still whip up something semi-tasty.
Putting
my heart and soul into my final culinary masterpiece, I didn’t really notice
when dishing up that the pie dish was stained.
When I went to do the dishes, I
noticed it was a little hard to clean, so I left it soaking overnight.
The next
day was Moving-Out-Day so I was busy packing bags, stealing cutlery, and using
the washing machine one last time, when I suddenly remembered the pie dish. Leaving it until last, giving it more time to
soak, I went in to the kitchen as I was leaving to quickly clean it and put
it away.
Turns out
that whatever had leaked outside my baking paper had well and truly stuck to
the pan and was not to be budged, and the pie dish now resembled my old pair of
DPM pants.
New
pie dish $8.00
I
grabbed Murms, locked the door, and took off to the motel without a backwards
glance. Just to be certain there will
be no repercussions, we are now to be known as Mr & Mrs Smith, address
Darwin somewhere, and if anyone called “The Workmate” asks about us… you know
nothing.
Total
Housesitting Damage $999.50
