Nice And Clean

This week I have been determined to get our downstairs rec room cleaned up and usable. Sunday was spent painting while Monday I spent all day scrubbing and cleaning. With the room cleaned out, I began to concentrate my effort on the smell.

For the past few years the room has had an unsavory odor that fluctuated. We assumed it was the litter box, although it didn't smell exactly like cat urine. I took the litter box out of the room and began to follow the odor. My nose led me behind our bar.

I remembered that Scott had unplugged the little refrigerator shortly after Robby was born when we realized that we were not going to be entertaining for awhile. My first mistake was not making sure that the refrigerator was empty before it was unplugged. My second mistake was opening the refrigerator door.

Apparently as turkey sandwiches rot, they begin to liquefy. Left long enough in an enclosed area, the liquid begins to morph into a powdery mold. After recovering from the odor and the powder that wafted up when I opened the door, I proceeded to throw the entire refrigerator into the trash. The offensive lingering smell is gone!

I am hoping that we will start to use this area of our house now that it is clean and family friendly. I am tired of the three of us congregating in our bedroom to watch television in the evening. Our bed has been been used as a couch for so long that it is beginning to wear out. Our bedroom has been transformed into Robby's playroom. Trying to relax at night I find myself lying on an uncomfortable lumpy mattress staring at toy cars and plastic dinosaurs spread from corner to corner. Not exactly tranquil, nor does it contribute to a romantic atmosphere.

When we moved into this house Scott convinced me that we needed a projector television with 103" drop down screen. We installed surround sound and bought a very comfortable sectional sofa. It is like having a personal movie theater. Because of the smell and the mess, for the past few years the projector has only been used to show the computer program when I am riding my bike. We returned the DVR box to Comcast because we were no longer using it.

I knew that it didn't matter how clean the rec room became, we were not going to spend any significant time using it until we had cable again. At my urging, although he would call it nagging, Scott finally went and picked up a cable box. I assumed it would be as simple as making a few connections and my room would be complete.

I was wrong. I went downstairs this morning to set up the cable box. I quickly became tangled in a sea of green, blue, yellow and red cords. I was also confronted with the occasional black cord just to add extra confusion. In an act of frustration, I decided that it would be easier to start from scratch so I hastily unplugged everything.

In retrospect, that was not my brightest move. I worked for nearly 3 hours as I logically tried to connect the dots to complete my cable puzzle. I am not sure how I did it, and I am fairly confident that I couldn't do it again, but we now have a working cable box, dvd player and surround sound hooked up to the projector. (I could not figure out how to hook up the VCR so I unplugged it and put it in the garage.)

With the room clean, odor free and fully wired, I was excited to put it to use and to reclaim my bedroom. After his bath and getting into his pajamas, we tried to convince Robby to come downstairs to play and watch cartoons before going to bed. He refused and ran into my bedroom.

We tried to pick him up and carry him downstairs, thinking that when he saw the big television playing cartoons he would be convinced. He began to cry and shake. I scrubbed and cleaned for days. I wove my way through a maze of confusing cords and wires. None of this made an impression. Apparently I had done nothing to get rid of the goblins.