Adventures in Charleston...

This is the first of my three part blogging about our weekend. It's way too much to fit in a single post! At least with the time constraints I'm currently operating under!

So last week the hubby comes home with pile of tickets to a baseball game. The Charleston Power (minor league) and we started planning a trip. His company leases a rarely used apartment in town, so his boss gave him the keys and off we went.

About halfway there he says "Oh, I'm pretty sure the AC in the apartment won't be working....Boss had to call maintenance because there was a problem with it". Oh. Okay....well, it's not that hot anyway. Should be fine. "And I'm not sure that the cleaners have been in. Boss had his assistant call because he was worried that they hadn't been there in awhile". Erm...that's another story. But really, no one stays there. It's vacant most of the time. How bad could it be?

Well, first thing I did was check the sheets. No way am I sleeping on sheets that someone I don't know has slept on. They look....wrinkly. And they don't smell like fabric softener. So we rip those puppies off the bed and try to fit them in the teeny tiny washing machine. One. sheet. at. a time.

Now, keep in mind that my in-laws were joining us on this adventure. Since I have kids....my standards of cleanliness are lowered. I mean, my house isn't filthy...but there's usually stuff out and you can often find crumbs in one room or another. My mother in law....well, she hasn't had kids in the house for many years. Her house is always spotless (well, unless my kids are visiting to crumb it up...but even then it stays pretty clean). Therefore....if I'm appalled by the filth of the place.....you can guess that she's going to be WAY grossed out.

Being brave (and having to pee) I peeked in a bathroom, screamed "HOLY CATS" and ran the other way. It was bad. Real bad.

I became crystal clear that the cleaning service had indeed totally punked out on their duties...and I really hope the Boss hadn't been paying someone to clean....because if so, he was getting majorly ripped off.

Hubby thought I was over-reacting, so I sent him in to check things out. He starts explaining that the Charleston water is bad (ha, compared to Fairmont?) and peeks around the door. He shrieks his manly version of "HOLY CATS" and also runs the other way.

I brandished a toilet scrubber at him and sent him back in. I think he scrubbed the tub with it first. It was that bad.

So the two of us cleaned like mad people to get it looking some kind of livable before the in-laws showed up (though honestly, it was still pretty bad when they got there) and I made a mad dash to the mall (did I mention Celia peed through her PullUp while napping on the way down....and I'm so bright I only packed dresses instead of more pants).

I went out just in time to meet the in-laws, apologise in advance for the stench of the hallway (the neighbors had their garbage out there!!! What kind of crap is that?) and the over all condition of the apartment.....and have a discussion with the lady that apparently lives downstairs about over what MIGHT be dripping in her apartment. I don't know lady, I've been here for 15 minutes. Call maintenance, will ya?

So, mad dash to the mall. Luckily, I walked in the door of Macy's and found super sale. I grabbed some pants (and a cute Hello Kitty shirt.....sorry, but the pants didn't match the ones she had on. I had to do it!) and ran to the only open checkout on that floor.

Which was staffed by a 92 year old woman. Who was methodically slow about , removing from hangers, checking for sensors, folding, wrapping in paper, and bagging each of the 92 items the lady in front of me was buying (not that I blame her, it was a great sale!).

20 minutes later....mad dash back to the apartment, dump the girl in her new clothes (which she proclaims "beautiful"...thank you baby) and we're off to the baseball game! (More on the game later)

We didn't get back until very, very late. Part of the problem was that we needed milk. You can't buy milk in downtown Charleston at midnight. You just can't. We had to drive all the way down Kanawa Blvd to an Exxon where someone handed me milk though a pull out drawer. The hubby wouldn't even get out of the car because he was convince someone out "bust a cap at him". I reminded him that as an uptight, white yuppie.....he should just say "shoot me" to avoid sounding like an idiot.

So the next day we had a leisurely breakfast at Starbucks, had some fun in the city (more on that later too) and headed back to the apartment for a cleaning spree.

It took Chris and I about an hour and a half to get that apartment spic and span, sparkly clean. I started thinking about getting a smaller place then and there. No WAY could we do that to our house!!!

Once we had it all clean....boy it looked nice. Classy. The Boss has really good taste in furniture. No clutter anywhere.

So I came home from a very nice trip with an unhealthy case of envy and a desperate need to throw out ever piece of clutter in my life, to deep clean and re-organize every shelf, closet, nook, and cranny in my home.

See you in November.....


P.S. On the way home, we stopped for gas and Chris fell over himself trying to get away from this dead bug. Then he fell all over himself trying to gross me out with it. Please , please, please, for the love of all things good and pure, tell me that this thing was a stow away from Florida and arrived in our state already dead or something. If we have bugs like this here in my pleasant mountain home......I may have to move.