The Incorrigible Elliott

September 30, 2014 – The Incorrigible Elliott

Well, I knew it wouldn’t be long before Elliott was back to his old tricks.  He just doesn’t know how to stay out of trouble.  This time, however, no sharp tools were involved.  On Sunday, while I was out, he was working in the garage and wanted to get some boxes that were up on a shelf.  So he climbed up on the closest chair, which happened to be one of the flimsy folding variety – in other words, a chair fine for sitting on, but not a good substitute for a step-ladder.  As soon as he put one foot on the seat of the chair, he and the chair began to wobble.  He slipped off and the metal edge of the chair seat scraped against his leg.  Although he was wearing his khakis, the fragile skin over his shinbone split open, from just under his knee down to his ankle.

Elliott cleaned his leg at the sink, applied antibiotic ointment, stuck a line of gauze pads over the oozing blood, and wrapped it all tightly.  When I got home a few hours later, he casually mentioned that he’d had another little mishap.  He rolled up the leg of his trousers and I could see that the blood had soaked through the gauze.  The open wound, about ten inches long, was still bleeding.  I bandaged him up again and brought him to see the doctor yesterday.  It doesn’t look too serious, but we’re closely monitoring his condition for any sign of infection. 

This latest injury certainly hasn’t slowed Elliott down.  This morning, I offered to take him to Target to get a new heater for his bathroom.  He countered by requesting that I take him to Home Depot.  I’m trying to be more accommodating, so I acquiesced.  It wasn’t until we’d put the heater in our cart that I realized my dear husband had an ulterior motive in choosing Home Depot. 

First of all, some background information:  For the past several weeks, Elliott has been tearing up the downstairs flooring – carpet, padding, and then glued-on tile (of some unknown material).  It was backbreaking and very slow work.  When Elliott had removed about twenty percent of the tile, he finally agreed to stop doing the work himself.  I thought the matter was finished.  Whoever we hired to install the new floor would remove whatever remained of the tile, if necessary. 

However, as I discovered this morning, Elliott isn’t ready to give up his role so easily.  It turns out that Home Depot has an equipment rental center, and that was his destination.  Much to my chagrin, Elliott found just what he was looking for:  a pogo stick tile stripper.  Along with this item, he’d have to rent a concrete refinisher to remove the glue and roughen the surface of the concrete underneath.  While the young woman with the orange apron was showing these pieces of equipment to Elliott, I started visualizing him back at work.  It was not a pretty picture.  But I restrained myself from uttering any negative comments aloud.  

The pogo stick tile stripper

As a reward for my patience this morning, I stopped by the Pumpkin Tasting Festival at Trader Joe’s this afternoon.  From dozens of pumpkin products, I sampled several seasonal goodies, including pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin biscotti, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin-cranberry crackers with cinnamon apple goat cheese, pumpkin cereal bars, roasted spiced pumpkin seeds, and pumpkin kringle (a traditional Danish pastry).  There were pumpkin displays throughout the store, as well as pyramids of pumpkin bread mix.  I noticed even more pumpkin products in the freezer case.  The pumpkin mochi and mini-pumpkin tartlets looked tempting, but I realized how dangerous it would be to bring such sugar-laden treats into the house.  Fortunately, after all that sampling, my taste buds were so completely satisfied that not a single pumpkin product ended up in my shopping cart.