Today, as I was cleaning out the old playroom closet to move Miles’ stuff in there, I moved an old inkjet printer (that had been stored on it’s side) to another room. I popped it down on a bin and went back to grab another item. As I walked back in I noticed a bunch of freakishly black spots splattered on the floor and to my horror I realized they were splattered across two rooms, including a hallway. I totally FLIPPED out. John’s response was, “Are you hurt?” My response was, “Oh my God, ink has spilled all over the place…..and it wasn’t my fault!!!!” (You see, I spill tea on almost a weekly occurrence, and that is totally my fault.)

So ink had pooled in the printer as it sat on it’s side in storage (who knew? opps….) and when I turned it upright and moved it to another room it dripped ink (and was currently dripping ink into a pool in the corner of my office) all over our builder’s-beige carpet.

Thank God ink for printing is water soluble. Here’s a little iphone pic of our little green machine doing an awesome job of cleaning it up. WHAT A MESS. Thank God for John, and his sweet carpet cleaning skills.

It, amazingly, came out. (Ok, for the most part. The pool of ink in my office remains an ominous shadow in the corner.) Had this happened downstairs we would have thrown up our hands and said, “Well, guess we have to get wood floors now!” However, it happened upstairs, where we really don’t want to mess with paying for new flooring. So we worked really hard to get it out.

Hope your Labor Day has included less labor than ours has!

PS If you have pets, kids or are, like me, just a klutz, you really need one of these.