TheBanyanTree: It wasn't pretty - warning, graphic details inside

[Laura]

I just spent an hour cleaning up a mess.

I was closing things down for the night, and reached to 
get the camera to put away.  I didn't realize that the 
strap had gotten wrapped around the base of the full cup 
of coffee sitting on the table with it.  The strap grabbed 
the bottom of the cup, and flipped the cup and all of it's 
contents squarely onto the center of my laptop computer.

<short pause to allow the horrified gasps and shocked 
mutterings to die down>

Yup, that's right.  If I had intended to pour the coffee 
onto the computer, I could not have done a better job of 
aiming.

Fortunately, I had already shut the computer down and shut 
the lid!  <WHEW!>  As I saw the cup starting to fall, 
reflexes kicked in and I grabbed for the cup.  You won't 
believe it, but I caught the darn thing, bottom down!  The 
bad part was, the strap yanked the cup from the bottom, 
forcing it to spin in the air.  I didn't catch it until it 
had made a complete rotation.  Coffee sprayed everywhere.

I quickly set the cup back on the table, and ignoring the 
fact that there was nearly an entire cup of sweet white 
coffee rapidly soaking into the ottoman and dripping into 
the newly cleaned carpet, grabbed the computer, holding it 
opening side down to keep stray coffee from running into 
the keyboard and screen, and ran into the kitchen where I 
grabbed a towel and started mopping coffee off the lid.  
Thank whatever deity you thank that none of the coffee 
seems to have gotten *in* the computer.  It just sorta ran 
across the top, and off onto the ottoman.

I got the computer wiped down, and stood it up like a 
teepee on a clean dish towel, just in case any liquid 
managed to seep in through the little speaker openings at 
the front.  (Later I did see that there was a tiny puddle 
under one speaker grille.  I sure hope that doesn't doom 
me to laptop death...)

Then I went back into the living room.  <big depressed 
sigh>  Coffee on the seat of the couch.  Coffee on the arm 
of the couch.  Coffee on the front of the couch, coffee on 
the side of the couch.  Coffee soaking into the ottoman, 
coffee soaking into the carpet.  Coffee spattered on the 
end table.  Coffee spattered on the cat bed under the end 
table.  Coffee spattered on the cat, who up until moments 
ago had been sleeping peacefully in said cat bed.  The cat 
was now glaring balefully at me.  He didn't even bother to 
lick it off.  He made *me* wipe it off of him.

Who knew  20 ounces of coffee could cover such a large 
area!? I did finally get the majority of the coffee out of 
the couch, ottoman, and carpet.  The big clean with the 
machine will have to wait until tomorrow, since the 
machine is loud enough to wake the kids up if I were to 
use it tonight.

Until then, the living room will just have to smell 
strongly of coffee.



-- 
Laura
wolfljshus at insightbb.com
http://home.insightbb.com/~wolfljshus/index.html