So, last week, I tried to have Travis use the poo bag as his travel bag for our weekend trip to visit the girls at college. Shortly after that trip, Travis and I had to decide if we were going to make the basement a big project or continue as a few little projects. Up until that point, we had worked on things that could be contained and still allow us to use the basement, like building a mantle, or adding a sink behind the bar, or recessing a TV, or spacing the huge book shelf so that the ping pong top could store behind it, or recessing shelving and a TV behind the bar, or replacing the old crumbly ceiling tiles. Okay, the last two were a little more involved, but one was contained to one space behind the bar, and the ceiling tiles could be done piecemeal. Now, we had to decide if we wanted to replace the Pergo floor that neither of us particularly cared for. 

While Travis was deciding, I pulled up some quarter round and a plank. Then, he came over and started ripping out planks. Decision made. This was going to be a big project because we had to work around a bar, a pool table, a couch, and our own tools. We persisted. There was also an old, yellowed vinyl floor below the Pergo. We had much discussion on whether or not we would remove that or use a vinyl plank floor over top of it. After much discussion, involving calling Travis’ parents and asking their opinion, it was decided that we would go over the vinyl. While Travis was in the hall, starting to remove carpet, I went behind the bar. When we moved into this house, there was water in the basement coming from the wall behind the bar. Travis had ended up pulling down all the drywall on that wall on the storage side (not the bar side) to find the source of the water. There was a hole in a drain from the kitchen where a TV was mounted behind the bar. Travis reran that drain so we wouldn’t have that happen again. I was looking at the curled, water damaged vinyl floor behind the bar, thinking about the water that probably got under that. Temporarily possessed, I started tearing at that exact spot of the vinyl. I swear, I was just looking for evidence of mold. When there wasn’t any mold, I kept looking, so convinced that there should be some. By the time Travis came around the corner, I had all the vinyl behind the bar torn up. We have established that I am a colossal pain in the ass. To his endless credit, he simply said, “Well, that’s that then.” So much for making decisions. 

I am well aware that I am the unskilled labor in this match up, so I frequently do the “dumb jobs” that require no ability. As such, I was assigned the task of removing the tack board that held the carpet in place in the hall. I wrestled most of the nails out of the cement floor with a clamp, a mallet, and a crowbar, but some got too short when the head popped off, and Travis would grind those down with his grinder. As I was sliding down the hall on my butt, I was frequently sporting an ample plumbers’ crack. Travis even remarked that he should stick a quarter in the slot before he narrowly escaped being swiped with a crowbar in the shin. At one point, he was grinding the nails right behind me, when I decided that getting showered with sparks wasn’t a great idea and moved. The job trudged on that day in our typical work fashion, which is to say that we worked best when we weren’t in the same space. 

The next day, I asked Travis if I had a tick in my lower back, because there seemed to be something in there, and we have plenty of ticks in our area. He looked and said it wasn’t a tick. Since it was right in the area of the top of my butt crack, I couldn’t really investigate it myself, so later in the evening I asked if he wouldn’t mind finding out what it was, since it wasn’t a tick. Using his phone light, he examined the area, then retrieved tweezers. He pulled out a splinter. He asked, “How did you get a splinter in your ass?” I didn’t know… until the realization came to me the following morning. I had metal splinters from Travis’ grinder. My coworkers said that Travis shot me in the ass. Another friend called it shrapnel. No matter what it was called, Travis asked me when my last tetanus shot had been. I had no idea. Upon calling my doctor, I discovered that they had no record of one. So I got to go to urgent care after work. It was apparent to me and the nurse practitioner at urgent care that there was more shrapnel in there. It seems everyone likes to pick, so the nurse and the nurse practitioner really tried to get the rest of it. In the end, there were about four metal splinters in that one spot, and inexplicably, another couple in my shoulder that I discovered later. It was the shoulder facing the side of the hall that Travis was working on those old, rusty, stubborn nails. 

I think that makes us even: poo bag vs. shrapnel. At some point, I will have to put in pictures of the basement project. I am not great at taking before pictures, since I tend to start things before we have fully formulated a plan, but I have during pictures. Have a great week everyone! Happy humpday! You’re halfway through the week!