Fourteen Years Bad Luck

So, Terry isn’t having a great week. In fact, I think he may be cursed.

Before I say anything else here I should point out that I? Am a neat-freak. Really. I cannot stand mess. If I’m in a messy room I start feeling like I can’t breathe. And, living with Terry, I spend a lot of time feeling like I can’t breathe.

This week, unfortunately, has been the Cursed Week of Mess. I am hyper-ventilating over here. I am literally dead. Witness:

The Sad Tale of the Tomato Soup

It is Thursday evening. Terry and I interrupt our scheduled slobbing out in front of the TV in order to make some more of those vodka cocktails we’ve been having lately. While rummaging in the fridge in search of random liquids to throw in a glass with vodka, though, Terry somehow manages to knock over an open can of tomato soup that’s sitting on the top shelf. (WHY?)

SPLAT!

God, it’s amazing how much soup they get in those cans, isn’t it? One minute we’re happily chatting away in the kitchen, the next we’re in the middle of a murder scene. The soup was all over the floor. It was all over the fridge. It was all over the walls, the kitchen units, the worktops and – yes – the ceiling. THE ACTUAL CEILING< PEOPLE. It was also all over Terry, who had to immediately strip to his underwear and throw his clothes and shoes into the washing machine. The washing machine that was ALSO covered in tomato soup. Gah.

It took over thirty minutes to restore the kitchen to anything like normality. During that thirty minutes, Terry picked up a bottle of blackcurrant juice to move it from one counter to another. The bottle was leaking. It leaked all over the floor, joining its friend, the tomato soup. Terry swore and moved the bottle again. It leaked again. More blackcurrant juice joined the party on the floor. I started to suspect we were on one of those hidden camera shows, and that this was all a set-up, because surely no one could be THIS clumsy for real?

Rubin, meanwhile, moved industriously around the kitchen, making little whimpering noises of joy, hardly able to believe his luck. Never in his wildest dreams had he dared to imagine that one day we would spread food over every available surface, but now the tomato soup was his! His! And on his paws he would carry it throughout the house.

Suffice to say, we are still finding tomato soup on things to this day. Regrettably, however, this was not the worst thing that happened this week.

The Worst Thing That Happened This Week

Some back story: It is December, 2003. The house is still shiny and new and we are getting ready to go on holiday to Las Vegas. Yay! Nice to go on holiday to Las Vegas! But! But! Terry has lost his passport. (Also: his car insurance, road tax and driving license, but let’s concentrate on the passport for now.) His search for it takes him to the wardrobe in the bedroom: the wardrobe with the cheap and nasty mirrored doors which I hate with the passion of a thousand hot suns, but which we cannot afford to replace as we have spent all of our money on this trip to Las Vegas which will have to be canceled if Terry doesn’t find his FREAKING PASSPORT ALREADY. (Nope, still not over it, apparently.)

Anyway, long story short: Terry rummages through the wardrobe, door gets stuck, Terry yanks at it to dislodge it:

CRACK!

Seven years bad luck, right there.

The other notable part of this story is that Terry used MASKING TAPE to stick the cracks in the mirror together and thought I would find this acceptable. I did not find it acceptable. We, however, had no money, were leaving for Las Vegas in two days time, and when we come home, would find that Terry had kidney failure and our lives were over.

In short, the door was never replaced. For three years, we have lived with only one door on the wardrobe in our bedroom. Until yesterday. Since yesterday, we’ve had NO DOORS. None. Nada. Zilch. I want to leave home. I need a new house, this one is broken.

First of all, Terry broke the mirror door in the spare room. Not the glass, just the roller thingy, so it was OK, it was fixable. This week, he finally got around to fixing it, and he decided that the best time to rip both doors off their hinges, empty the wardrobe and make more mess than I could have imagined? Was 10.30pm on Friday night, right after I’d spent a looong time cleaning the house in preparation for the weekend. I run a tight ship here.

As he placed the hated mirrored doors on the floor and got out his hammer, a vague sense of foreboding crept over me. Terry is about to break another door, I thought, sage-like. Sure enough:

CRACK!

Fourteen years bad luck. And this is the sight I now wake up to in the mornings:

Also: the last remaining mirrored doors? The set that aren’t broken? Pepe crapped on them. Extravagantly.