House Sitting (and related catastrophes)

Well, it's my first day houses-sitting for some friends of ours, and so far it's been very interesting. This morning I decided that it would probably be a good idea to get started before it got too hot, so I went in the garage to get my bike. It's been a very long time since I've been on a bike and I just stood there staring at the row of bikes trying to remember which one was mine (yes, it was that bad.) I did the only reasonable thing to do after that: I hollered, "JAY!" and my (very helpful) brother came over to rescue his damsel in distress. He showed me the correct bike, got it out for me, and then started to add air to my tires.

Disaster struck when the tire air pump blew up (literally). I tried to tell him that the tire felt fine but he said, "Nic, you need 60 psi to drive on the road. You're at..." he checked the gauge, "Zero." Plan B. We got an air compressor going and finally filled it and I was off. I apparently didn't have the shifting thing down properly and several times I was going past someone's house when my gears would make some unknown "thunk". Oh, well. I finally go there in one piece (rather miraculous) and came inside, very thirsty. They have a very expensive new refrigerator so I found a cup and got myself some-----nevermind. I could not for the life of me figure out how to get the ice machine and water dispenser to work, so I had to drink lukewarm water from the sink.

I then got to work finding the cat food, actually feeding the cats, and watering the lawn. I accidentally turned the water on too high and before I could catch it I also watered the house. Whoops. Finally I came inside to hunt around for a piece of paper to write my adventures down on, and--(prepare yourself, this will be dreadful)--I searched in their drawers for a pen. I found tons of pencils, silverware, address cards, and a driving ticket but no pens so I reverted to using a pencil.

Before I got a single word on the page it was time to change the lawn water. I went out to grab the hose and attached sprinkler but somehow grabbed it incorrectly and the whole thing came apart. I was then soaking wet. I finally fixed it and came back inside and started writing; about this time a guy in a golf cart who looked a little creepy went riding past the back fence (their house is on a golf course) so I made my presence known so that he would know the house wasn't unoccupied.

By then I was thirsty again so I went to get another drink and saw that there were some ants in their kitchen. Not good. With my pen-searching skills, I decided to venture into the garage to find some ant spray. I found a lot of things; Lysol, "Kaboom Toilet Bowl Blaster", propane, spray paint and all-purpose plant food, but no bug spray. I considered my options and decided that highly-concentrated doses of Lysol would probably be my best bet, so I made a point of spraying the ants-- well--at point-blank range and it didn't appear to have any effect but, who knows, maybe Lysol kicks in after awhile. Needless to say that by this point the kitchen smelled extremely "sanitary".

I had this odd premonition of some sorts that I should check the plants' water. When I went out there, they were damp, but that quickly proved to be from the overspray back when I pulled the "watering the house" stunt. I'll spare you the long version but for the next 10 minutes I kept trying to figure out how to turn the plants' water on.

Now I have the ater going, the trashcans in, the cats fed, the ants threatened and the situation under control. I'd better head back home before some further catastrophe takes place. Hopefully I won't do anything silly like crash my bike on the way home.......

:)
Nicole