Monday, May 6, 2019

Thank The Gummi Mary, It Wasn't Wall-To-Wall Carpeting

A couple days ago, I mentioned finding a millipede marching across my braided rug, nearly camouflaged by the pattern. I included a photo of that rug, and let slip its true name: The Toenail Rug. I've found the original blog post that revealed the story of The Toenail Rug [along with an even more disturbing (if that's possible) home furnishing]. I'll put a link at the end, but I'm putting The Toenail Rug saga below.

When I bought my $17,000 house in town, it needed a little work. You'd expect that, right, from a $17,000 house? One repair was a new sub-floor. That's the industrial strength plywood that goes down on the floor joists, before you cover it with carpet or wood or tile. In this case, we were planning on carpet. We'd also bumped out the corner of the living room to make a nook for a computer, and were waiting on that to be finished before having the carpet installed. Unfortunately, our carpenter ran his mouth at a bar, and was locked up a few weeks in the county jail. He did great wood work, but his interpersonal skills were not on par with his craftsmanship.

Here we were, with autumn inching into winter, living on a subfloor that had drafty cracks. Luckily, my grandma offered us her braided rug. She was getting a new one. The old braided rug had been in front of Grandma's fireplace ever since I could remember. We didn't care that it had some burned, melted spots from embers jumping out of the fireplace when the screen was open for jabbing at the logs. That's why Grandma had a braided rug. It laid on top of her carpet.

Anyhoo... Farmer H and I were glad to get the braided rug, and Grandma was glad to get rid of it. It covered our entire living room, and stopped the drafts. One night I sat down on the couch, and my socked foot snagged on something sharp on the braided rug. We are not barefoot hillbillies, but I don't wear shoes inside the house. Whatever it was, this thing jabbed all the way through my sock. I asked Farmer H to look and see if maybe a staple or a paper clip was caught in the braided rug.

Farmer H crawled around dutifully at my feet. "Here it is!" He grabbed it and stood up, holding it in the air. Brandishing it like a nerd winning a Technical Lighting award clutching his Oscar. It was a TOENAIL! A big, ragged, man's toenail. My 5'2", humpbacked, little old Grandma could never have cultivated a toenail of such proportions! My uncle from Alaska had been staying with her during the Christmas tree season. They owned a tree farm. It had to be HIS toenail! EEWWW! That toenail made me gag.

When it was time for the carpet installation, Farmer H hung The Toenail Rug over the clothesline in the back yard, and beat it within an inch of its life. He rolled it up and stashed it somewhere for safekeeping. He said it was worth too much to throw away. Scavenger! I know we didn't put it in the basement of the $17,000 house, because it needed a sump pump, and sometimes still took on water during a heavy rain. I hate to think how much that Toenail Rug would have weighed when wet!

Once we built our now-house, and Farmer H finished the basement, The Toenail Rug had a new home. The boys could sit on it to play video games and watch TV.

Here it is yesterday. Don't shame me because my Christmas tree is still up! I have trouble letting go.





There's the electric fireplace, and The Pony's cheap gaming couch, with a couple of fleece throws that I've won by outplaying others at my sister the ex-mayor's wife's Christmas Eve parties.

Here's the Toenail Rug's original tale, back from March 17, 2006, and its horrifying companion piece. Though you've just read about it here, so no need to go there and be subjected to my 13 year old writing style. Meaning it was that long ago, less polished, not that it reads like a 13-year-old wrote it. That might be giving it too much credit!

5 comments:

River said...

All this time (a whole day Heh) I've been thinking it was The Toe-nail Rug because Farmer H used to cut his toenails there. (yuk)
So your $17,000 house would take in water during a heavy rain? Did you know this before you bought it and if you did, why buy a house that might one day float away?
Your current basement looks very nice.

Sioux Roslawski said...

What is it with men and their toenails? Why don't women's toenails get thick and yellow and almost more like hooves than nails?

I heard a (supposedly true) story on the radio about an employer who was interviewing someone. During the interview they clipped their nails (I'm assuming fingernails, but I could be wrong), they had a small plastic container and they wanted to know if the prospective employer wanted to keep the clippings, or if they (the interviewee) should take them with them.

Needless to say, they did not get the job.

And to finish this foot discussion, I used to work for a Salvation Army residential facility for abused and neglected kids (off Broadway on Marine, if you know the area). Part of my job was taking the babies (the group I was in charge of) to supervised visits with their birth parents. One father we were warned about: Do not let her begin the visit with shoes on.

We soon found out why. Apparently he had a foot fetish, and if he got to visit with her and she had shoes on, she'd get returned with a shoe missing. (Who knows what unthinkable things he did with that shoe.)

In advance, I'll say "You're welcome."

Hillbilly Mom said...

River,
It was a $17,000 house! Yes, it was revealed that during a heavy rain, the unfinished basement would take on water. The house was halfway down a hill, with windows on three sides of the basement. I guess the slope made that side of the house susceptible. We poured a new concrete floor, put down tile, built a bedroom at one end, and doubled the living area of the house. The five years we lived there, the basement only "flooded" with a couple inches of water twice. Nothing was damaged. Hick had drilled out a circular area of the floor, and put in a sump pump for when a heavy rains were forecast.

Sioux,
Thanks ever so much for that foot dissertation! If only you could have included pictures with your comment...

That poor child! I might have been more worried to let her visit with her feet bare, if he had a foot fetish and not a shoe fetish!

River said...

I did not know the house was halfway down a hill with windows on three sides of the basement. Now I can see how it would take in water. Anyhoo, out here that wouldn't have passed council inspection, not without outdoor drainage of some sort to take the water away from the house. It wouldn't even have been constructed without sufficient site drainage. I guess things are really different there.

Hillbilly Mom said...

River,
There was no way to get along that hill wall. The living room of the house was over that section. Otherwise, we could have put in a big black plastic pipe with holes in it, to drain the water away, like we put around the foundation of the Mansion when we built it. Never had a leak here, except from inside, when the drain from the air conditioner unit gets blocked up.

The $17,000 house was built around 1900 or 1920. We fixed it up a lot, and built a big bedroom on the back. Sold it for $45,000 eight years later. I'd take a picture, but the current residents have let it go to Not-Heaven. It makes me sad, every time I drive by. I'm not sure it's worth $17,000 now! Farmer H said it might be worth buying back to flip, because he KNOWS the electric and plumbing are sound, sin he put them in.