Objects Sold on Kijiji Are Roughly The Same Size As They Appear

Last summer, I agreed to "foster parent" a dog. It wasn't a big dog, and in my imaginings, this arrangement would simply mean more of the same for our family. I mean- we have a dog. So, if we had two dogs, that would just two blobs of fur sleeping on the couch. Their needs are relatively simple- adore me, feed me, walk me, and let me out to pee.

That part didn't go too badly. But what I hadn't factored in was that our borrowed dog would scare the sh*t out of our own dog. Well, actually.... scare the pee right out of her. She took one look at that intruder, high-tailed it up the stairs to the bedroom, and proceeded to spend the next three weeks peeing on the boys' bedroom carpet. (yes- duh- we did carry her down, let her out, blah, blah, blah. But every time I had my head turned, that dang dog was back upstairs depositing her liquid DNA all over the spongey floor.)

Well, I do have my limits. After the dog-sitting stint was over, I rolled up that whole floor and gave it a ride to the dump. Somehow the thought of the kids making lego sculptures on shag-a-la-pee-pee made me just a little twitchy. Sans carpet, the room was left sad, destitute, ugly, and bare planked (and not in a romantic way) Lost socks and stray lego made the place look like next in line for some pathetic episode of Hoarders; with child protective agencies beating down my door. It simply wouldn't do.

So, on a bitterly cold January morning and nothing but a leaky Montana between me and a Manitoba snowstorm, I headed off to the bedroom of strangers to make a deal a la kijiji.

There's nothing like spending twenty minutes in the master bedroom with bad-hair-in-nightie woman and her hen-pecked to bloody stumps husband to get you over any fear of stranger danger. A few grunts and some sweat between strangers, and we got that floor rolled up and stuffed into the back of the van for a cool notalottamoney.

Back home, it only took dodging two snow-encrusted, tossed christmas trees, and climbing the front steps braille style in knee deep snow to wrestle that gem into the (unused) front door and straight up the stairs to the bedroom. Gym, shmim. I wrestle carpet alligators upstairs backwards, and barefoot without so much as a stratch. humph.

Armed with only a glass of leftover white wine, my utility knife and tape measure, plus an entire Saturday afternoon, I battled that shaggy beast into submission. Begone, pee pee floor. Farewell, bare wood of ugliness and slivers.

Hello, soft underfootings for my handsome, handsome little man.

(all dressed up for his thrift shop social at youth. What a looker....)