Challenge #01817-D356: Adulting Test
Clean up inspired by looming arrival of Parents visiting. -- Anon Guest
It took two weeks for Amber's first place away from home to become a fucking dump. And the following three weeks only made it worse. It was easier to buy new things than it was to look for the old ones. The paths most trodden were the only places where the floor was visible. It was waist high, it was smelly, and it needed to be gone inside five hours.
Because Amber's parents were coming over and if they thought for an instant that she couldn't take care of herself, then they would revert her to child status and start micromanaging her days again. One or the other would come and move in and make certain that she had packed snacks in Rainbow The Pony merchandise despite the fact that she'd been over Rainbow The Pony since she was five. Two decades ago.
So she enlisted the help of her housemates, stole a gigantic bin from the local supermarket, and chucked everything that was rubbish out of the windows in a flurry of activity that the house hadn't seen since Amber moved in with her friends. Stacking up books, piling up useful items in relevant stacks, getting everyone to take turns with the washing up. And, in general, panicking because Amber's Mum and their assorted parents all knew each other and retribution was not just forthcoming, but taking all the winning places.
Karen had the bright idea of putting the excess spare tools and gadgets into the excess laundry baskets with the excess clothes and pretending that they were going to be for a charity drive, "next month". It organised the stuff into reasonable lots, made it all tidy and, with expert folding, hid the food stains on the excess laundry.
Julie, Alex, and Kim were the ones to get the big bin back to where it came from in the nick of time. They were pretending they'd been jogging upon their return.
The only problem was that the vermin were now without a hiding place, and though the droppings and some of the insects could be vacuumed up, the rodents were a little harder to explain.
But Amber tried anyway. "It's the neighbours," she said. "They're all slobs. We've complained about the smell and everything but the landlord doesn't do a thing."
"We need a lot of rat and mouse baits," panted Kim. "And bug baits. Loads of them."
"Why does this place smell like frangipanis?" asked Amber's Mum.
"Uuuuhhh... we ran out of air freshener," said Karen. Champion improviser extraordinaire. She'd had it as a gift from an elderly aunt and it covered the garbage smell of the carpets. "The last tenants here really let the place go to heck? And the carpet smells? We're saving to rent a cleaner, but they can only do so much."
"Well. The first place away from home isn't always so nice," said Amber's Dad. "You should have seen mine. I didn't clean for four months and all the trash was waist deep."
Five young women laughed nervously at that revelation.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / baksiabat]
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