Chapter 5 - Pregzilla: Called on the Carpet

Boss brought up the delivery date subject out of thin air at the office this week. "You saw her," he chirped eagerly. "You think she's going to go early, don't you?" he accused, as though he believes that her gestational maturity must surely occupy my every waking thought. (Um, sure, that's JUST what I was pondering. How did he know???? Not. )

He seemed deflated when I told him that firstborns are statistically likely to be late, and that the size of the baby doesn't have that much to do with "ripeness", in my admittedly limited experience. (I mean, I've only had seven kids.) I get the idea that Pregzilla & Boss are secretly peeved that there are precedents for childbirth. They are out to break all the records. They are definitely sure that they are going to produce the biggest, smartest, most athletic, earliest-yet-healthiest babe on the face of the planet.

Boss subsequently chatted about the carpet remnant he was in search of, for the baby's room. I was kind of surprised - I knew for a fact that their carpet had been in pristine condition just weeks ago. Well, not anymore. Seems an insurgent table lamp had vaulted off a dresser and broken its bulb. All by itself. Or perhaps pushed. By evil spirits. Or by the ghost of Pregzilla's cat, which died recently.

It was just an incandescent bulb, NOT even a CFL(I asked), but Pregzilla flipped out, declaring a hazardous mercury spill and demanded that Boss immediately rip up the hazardous carpeting and pad all the way to the subfloor. Which he immediately did.

Now, I know they've got a vacuum, because boss has previously pointed out that he's been doing the family sweeping, as Pregzilla isn’t and hasn’t ever been able to drag the heavy machine back and forth across the carpet. Or push a heavy dishrag back and forth across a dirty plate, or push a heavy spatula back and forth across a non-stick skillet, among other things, but I digress.

Instead of merely vacuuming up the bulb fragments, they’re planning to replace the carpet, which honestly, they can ill-afford to do. And because Pregzilla didn’t actually RESEARCH any of her misconceived notions, and neither did Boss, they don’t know that regular light bulbs don’t contain mercury. (And frankly, though it’s somewhat debatable, even if it HAD been a CFL that broke, cleanup is pretty straightforward, and the mercury vapor would have been long dissipated by the time baby ever got a crack at the carpet. Particularly since the breakage WAS only in ONE small spot in the room.)

So, because of the afore mentioned challenged finances, they’re looking to get a remnant DONATED. What?? Can you imagine, having the cajones to walk into a flooring business and asking the salesperson to GIVE you a piece of carpeting and pad, enough to do a whole bedroom? I can just see bewilderment on the salesperson's face - "because you're pregnant and you are having a baby and you broke a lightbulb???"

"And twenty miles away, the river overflowed its levee, and the babies there would have poisoned, contaminated MUD to crawl on if their mamas put them down on the floor of what used to be their carpeted nurseries. And you had perfectly GOOD carpeting, but you broke a LIGHT BULB, (not even a "bad" one) and so you ripped UP the perfectly good carpeting and now you want me to GIVE you a replacement (with pad, don't forget the pad) big enough to cover the whole room. Right. Next."

That's my disagreeable daydream of what might happen. Realistically, knowing Boss, he'll probably get the free carpet, free pad and free installation to boot. Shoot, they'll probably throw in new carpet for our foyer at the office. Just you watch. I'll keep ya posted....

A sweet Fishie asked if I'd pointed out that the lightbulb was NOT mercurious:

Not after the poor gullible soul had already ripped up the carpet, no I didn't. He acts a lot on hearsay and jumps to conclusions quite a bit because he's too busy (and sometimes inept) to check out things for himself.

He's the type of person who will get one of those mass emails with the erroneous info (you know, the kind you can easily debunk with a simple Google or Snopes search) and spread the news like Gospel. Before his matrimony, I used to be able to head him off at the pass or at least catch him before he made himself look like a total fool. Since the wedding though, he and Pregzilla are pooling their ignorance and plowing on, and I don't have half a chance. I mean, don't get me wrong - I don't have egotistical delusions of matchless intellect or anything, but I can use a search box.

And as for why I stay on - other than the obvious captivating entertainment - I genuinely believe in the mission of our organization. It's 85% the best non-volunteer job I've ever had , 14.9% just plain unexplainable (although I do try... ) and only 0.1% completely intolerable. Those aren't bad numbers for a job, after all, right? I don't think many people can say they like their jobs as well as I do, so unless something changes for the much worse (which might happen at any moment ), I'm there!