Team Follow Through

You may have noticed that my friend and I seem to find trouble everywhere we go. We are not sure why these things happen to us, we are just two middle aged Jewish women minding our own business (well, for the most part). We feel compelled to share our experiences with the world, because sometimes we think that they are too bizarre to be true! You be the judge!

One day, at a preschool PTO meeting, my friend and I agreed to form a committee to refurbish the classrooms. One of the projects we started on right away was to do some painting. My friend remembered that her brother’s house, which he rented as a vacation home (not to be confused with a meth house) had several large vats of paint in the garage leftover from when the house was repainted. So we decided to go to her brother’s empty home together to retrieve the paint. I offered to drive, but my friend just got a brand new mini van with all the bells and whistles including a tv moniter and she wanted me to see it, so she drove instead.

When we entered his home, we noticed that there were a few ants in the foyer and my friend got some ant spray from under the kitchen sink. She sprayed the ants and said, “That oughta take care of them.” We then went into the garage where my friend remembered seeing the large canisters of paint. Between the two of us we were able to lift the industrial sized buckets of paint into the back of her mini van. We didn’t realize how heavy they were, but we managed. When we locked up the house, we noticed that the front foyer was now covered by multitudes of ants! The floor literally looked like it was moving! The house had been vacant so long, and being that we were in a tropical environment, this was not uncommon. When my friend sprayed the ants, we think it disturbed a nest and caused them to swarm. My friend, who is a bit squeamish, started screaming as though she came upon a crime scene. (By the way, if I ever get the chance to record her screaming, I will upload it to this blog so that you could get the full grasp of the bone chilling blood curdling screams that emit from her being. I am almost 100% positive that her screams could be heard all the way to Montana on a clear day!) I got my wits about me and started looking around for something that I could use to get rid of the ants. I ventured into the garage with screaming as my background music, and found a plastic tub with a label on in that read: Germacide. I wasn’t sure what exactly germacide was, but I figured it would do the job, and at this point, my friend’s hysteria was driving me crazy so I was quite desperate.

I don’t always make the best decisions…

As I entered the foyer, my friend saw me holding the bucket and grabbed it from me, ripped open the lid, threw it aside, and doused the entire foyer with pale blue liquid causing the ants to die and they started floating. We actually thought this was a good idea, to throw germicide on the problem, but after all, we are just 2 middle aged Jewish women, what do we know from this? As I saw that she was standing ankle deep in the liquid I screamed, “Don’t move!” I ran into the bathroom, grabbed towels (which I knew were guest towels carefully placed for paying guests, but need I remind you, I was deperate ) and placed them on the floor where it was dry. I told my friend to carefully walk out of the germacide and onto the towels. Luckily, she wore sneakers and long pants that day! As she stepped onto the towels, she slipped and wrenched her back a bit, but she made it to the towel. I told her to take her pants and shoes off immediately. After taking them off, she put them in a plastic bag. We then walked out of the house and into the car, and my friend was “donald ducking it.” She was in her skivvies but at this point, she didn’t care! I then looked over at my completely frazzled, half naked friend whose hair by the way was completely disheveled and I said, “Maybe I should drive.”

You guessed it, it got worse!

As we pulled out of the driveway, my friend called a pest control company and explained everything that happened. She was a bit hysterical and as I heard her speak into the phone, I couldn’t believe how crazy it sounded. After she hung up, we drove in silence. It gave us a few moments to calm down. And that’s when something else happened. I turned the corner into her development and we heard the sickening “thud” sound and we knew exactly what occurred. One of the paint canisters fell over in the back of her new mini van. She looked at me and said, ” Michael ( her husband) is going to kill me.” I said, “let me get out of the car and look, obviously you can’t since you are pantless.” Lo and behold, I opened the trunk and one canister had fallen over and the lid popped off and the paint was all over the new carpet! I went back into the car and told my friend we needed to get to her house right away. I backed into the driveway, opened the door of the trunk and then went to the passenger side to help my half naked and slightly injured friend get out of the car. She was in such a state, her back hurt her so I held her by the arm and led her to the garage. Her husband came out and saw the trunk open and then looked at his wife limping in the driveway, totally distraught in her underwear and he reached out his arms with a very worried look on his face. As he came towards us I thought, how sweet, he’s so concerned about his wife! Yet as soon as he got near, he pushed past us and screamed, “What happened to my baby? My new mini van! Honey, what did you do this time?”