Carpet bombing

We worship the carpet Stanley Steamers walk on.

The piddle present left in our bedroom near the glass door - courtesy of chicken-dogs - gone.

The yacked up egg shell in the guest room - courtesy again of chicken-dogs - gone.

The yacked up remains of three tequila shooters and eight or 10 or 12 beers - those chicken-dogs are booze hounds - gone.

It takes two high school flunkies, enough hose to pipe clean water into Mexico from Phoenix and a vacuum the size of Kansas, and presto the carpets inside the Melissa Compound are hair free, dirt free and piss free. All thanks to Stanley and his Steamers.

Because our herd of animals think the carpet is nothing more than fuzzy grass, they like to roll all over it, bringing the outside a little closer for Wife and I to see. Twigs, dirt clumps and burrs that lay in wait under the couch anticipating your next barefooted steps before launching itself into the fleshy hunk of skin between the big toe and the toe that stayed home, are our presents, leaving our rugs to look more like the inside of a tent during a weeklong camp out in the Sierra Nevadas.

But that's where our boys, Mr. Stanley Steamer and his fine carpet-steaming army comes in. When that light-beer-yellow van (maybe that's why I have a man crush on the company, it's color reminds me of Miller Lite) peels through our driveway I'm like Dino when Fred comes home. Wife often leashes me and ties me to the kitchen table otherwise I'm apt to tackle the Steamers and thank them before they actually lift the blood stains from the carpet in the front room (as per my attorney, I cannot divulge more information than that - suffice it to say San Francisco Giant fans know better than to step foot on the Melissa Compound now).

If only it was all peaches and creams on Stanley Steamer day, though.

The first task is cat corralling. I've seen dogs herd sheeps and cows, and I thought maybe our pooches could corral our kitties into the laundry room for a 90 minute lockdown. However, it turns out not only are our four-legged fidos afraid of the groomer, little kids and rolling trash cans, the indoor, claw-free, barely 10-pound cats spook the bejesus out of them, too. We'd put our cats outside, into the wild of suburban Arizona, but Wife is afraid a gang of feral cats would roll them for their catnip. Knowing our two felines, they'd hand the house keys over to the feral gang and let them ransack the joint if they thought it would land them a plate of tuna.

Coco trusts me, which is her first mistake, so chaining her inside the laundry room is as easy as getting Wife into a jewelry store. It's that black wench Petie who makes use work. We call this cat the lap slut because if you're sitting on the couch she feels entitle to sit on top your legs. There's no question about it. She sees lap, she sits on lap, and tells you to F-off if you ask her to get off the lap. No, instead she wiggles deeper into your lap so that if you do decide to move she can sink her fangs into meaty part of the thigh or some nether regions I shan't go into here. Suffice to say, I'm speaking from experience.

With the Steamers on the way, we have little time to lure the lap whore to us, so the next best trick is opening the tuna can. Waving that around the house and I'm the cat wrangler of Arizona, every feline in Maricopa County and the neighboring townships flock to our door when we pop the top on the Sunkist. When I want a tuna sandwich the cats are there, patiently expecting their share. If I stiff them on the snack I get a chorus of meows that I'm sure, if translated, would come out: "Hey, you two-legged home sapien, how 'bout a little something for us. Remember, we see what you and other two-legged homo sapien do at night. A little taste of that tuna will go a long way to keeping us quiet." However, when we really need to snare her in a tuna trap, she knows we're up to no good. We don't willingly give her tuna, so to see us nice and cuddly must ring warning bells in her head. "Hmmm, homo sapiens are being nice, offering me tuna and want me to sit on their laps. Yeah, these a-holes are hatching a sceme." So, instead Petie runs throughout the house believing she's tonight's main course on the Melissa Compound menu (we are trying to eat better, maybe cats are high in fiber). We play hide-and-seek with the cat, chasing her from one room to the next, cooing her to join us and then reaching foor the floor as she darts between our legs, giving us the finger (paw?) as she makes for the couch. Of course, she never read the hide-and-seek rule book, so as we approach her meows become more desperate, more "oh crap, they're coming for me, save yourself Coco." And Coco could give a shit because right now she doesn't have to share the tuna snack with Petie.

The Steamers recommended we open every window and aim as many fans as we could at the damp carpets. We do as we're told because we're sheep and we follow Stanley Steamers' words like they're gospel. "Thou shalt now buy our service plan so we can further your brainwashing once every three months." "Amen." It's great advice when the thermometer hits 80, 85, 90 outside, not so much when it's 50 outside and raining like we just angered God because we pissed on the burning bush. The wind from the storm outside coupled with the fans blowing at full speed, Wife and I hole up in the one safe room of the house after the Steamers pack up their hose and dirt sucker. The cats are now loose and enjoying the artic conditions our house is experience because they have fur coats, all the while telling us homo sapiens that they're about to crap in our shoes. Then it hits me, we could start a fire to at least warm the one room we typically living in - the TV room - and dry the carpet at the same time. It's a great plan in theory, but Wife has turned the fireplace into a Catholic votive, leaving that theory shot to hell. I look at the colorful array of candles inhabiting my fireplace (I'm sure they're boinking each other in there and multiplying as I freeze my ass off night after cold-ass desert night) and think, oh yeah, that's the perfect use for the fireplace. It will save us countless Benjamins we'd schlep off to a chimney sweep to clean the damn thing.

I bundle up like I'm about to climb Everest, but to do so I have to stand on the wet carpet to retreive the parka and Spiderman-decorated mittens. It's a chain reaction of cold, beginning with the feet and taking the expressway to my nose where the cold turns to snot and leaks out of me like a half-opened soda can on its side.

And the one thing that replays in my head is the Steamer saying we shouldn't turn on the heaters unless we want a monsoon in the house. Really? A monsoon? With all the fans and windows, we had enough wind to replicate a monsoon, add the heater and we'd have thunder, lightning and rain inside the house, according to the Steamer meteorologist. That's just what I'd need, a crack of thunder to go off as we're watching television, likely a key scene of Dharma & Greg or something. It could also be the big man upstairs's clue for us to watch something with a little more substance, like Sanford and Son.

So Wife and I decided to take refuge in Arizona's one safe zone - Fuddruckers. Nothing warms ice block feet like deep fried onions and liquid jalapeno cheese. We pound down a high-fat, low nutrional dinner while watching the rain come down like its the end of the world. Wife looks deep into my eyes and says, "Shit!" I thought she'd say that earlier in our marriage when looking at me; I guess it took her this long for it to register who exactly she married. Sorry dear, I say, thinking the jig was up and she saw through my nice-guy disguise. "We left the dogs outside," which means - in Wifespeak for you single fellas - I (me) left dogs outside in the rain.

I do the math: wet dogs(muddy paws) + damp carpets = carpets the consistency of a mud bog. We race home like we're in the final lap of the Daytona 500, bump drafting seniors in Buicks and taking the inside corner of turns away from minivan driving soccer moms, believing the faster we drive, the drier the dogs will be. The difference between five minutes in the rain and 10 minutes is the difference between soggy doggie and a drenched doggie. I'm not sure what that adds up to, but it did mean we had to sit in the screen room and hand dry the pooches like they were Corvettes in for a buff and wax. Once dry, we covered them from neck to tail in seran wrap, hoping the dirt would not find an unprotected crack in our plastic defense and run for our damp carpets.

Wife and I now have pneumonia but the carpets are dry and still dirt free, one day later, despite God's best job at screwing us over with cold weather, rain and mud hounds. Thanks for looking out for us big guy. Remind me when I see ya to yack up a few tequila shooters and a 12-pack of Guinness on Heaven's finest carpet.