Adventures Down Under
Written by Jen Thursday, 11 December 2008 02:32
Blog
The first weekend of December is project time in our family. While most folks decorate or shop--or even rest--we usually tackle a huge home improvement project which results in no water or power (or both), paint fumes and/or drywall dust.
But this year was a bit different. We didn't exactly build up or tear down, we excavated. We cleaned the basement, or as we have coined it, "the black hole."
Our plan...for six years now...has been to turn this bedraggled space into a wonderland for teenagers. We want our children's friends to flock here to eat pizza and feel the welcoming warmth of our household. (Also, this way we can make sure they're not TPing the neighborhood.)
The biggest problem is that we're dealing with bare bones stuff here. We have no super-duper media equipment, cushy leather furniture or pool table. We also have no plans to add anything of quite this caliber. Heck, we don't even have a carpet since the remnant was ruined in the GREAT FLOOD of May 2008.
We do, however, suddenly have a cache of spider crickets, or cricket spiders, or spickets. Whatever you call them, they're really scary, hopping spider-like critters that paralyze me with their ugliness. I don't care that they don't bite and are utterly harmless. They are big. And they jump. The only way they are going to move is if we hunt them down and light up their dark space. It's us or them, or rather me or them. Since I feed the children in this house, they must cooperate. They had to clean the basement.
Littered with little kid stuff long outgrown, decorating mishaps and relatives' hand-me-downs, the black hole is a strange place, indeed, with or without the vile spider thingies. Even more disturbing is the experience of cleaning it with the children, who really would prefer having tonsils removed or scraping mildew from the shower. Anything is better than venturing downstairs.
On the day we have dubbed "B day," at the designated hour we planned to plunge into the abyss, the boy from down the street conveniently showed up, eager to play video games. Then our oldest son's girlfriend arrived with plans to go ice skating. Alas, I emerged from my room--ready to sweep and scrub and toss--to find a houseful of guests with no eager beaver among them.
Wait a minute. "WE HAD A PLAN," I shouted! My husband and daughter, the lone participants, were filling garbage bags, unaware of the mutiny overhead. It's not that we announced, say, every 10 minutes for a week that we were ALL going to clean the basement today. Perhaps I should've sent a text message.
After my predictable fit, the job was eventually accomplished and last weekend we welcomed a group of boys to our clean space below. They ate pizza, they played video games. They crashed for the night while the snow fell outside.
Three days later we found a spicket...upstairs. So I won't be writing any more entries for awhile as we have declared war in this house. Somebody, hand me the vacuum!
