Mold!

I was talking on the phone with Michelle late last week while I was walking down my hallway. My home is mostly covered in Pergo wood flooring, which I love. It's warmer than tile and easier to clean than carpet. It's a laminate flooring, installed directly over concrete, atop of a cushy liner which makes it very comfortable to walk on.

As I walked by one of the bathrooms, I stepped in a puddle. Again. This the was third time in a day and a half that I had stepped in that annoying puddle, I thought crossly to myself, reaching for a towel to mop it up. Then I stopped. "What? What is it?" asked Michelle.

"I think I have a problem," I said, or I said something similar to that. My mind racing furiously, I wiped up the water, then stepped on the board again. Water welled up from underneath, through the cracks. "Oh crap!" I said. "I think I have a leak. I'll call you back."

I called the boyfriend, who rushed home to see what was happening. Later that day, with 1/3 of my hallway torn up (the Pergo was ruined) we determined that there was a small, slow leak in a nearby wall. It may be the result of a leaky pipe, it may simpy be the accumulation of water over a long period of time and our recent bout of warm weather may have accelerated the mold.

I woke up that next morning to see a few bumps on my face. I hadn't had acne like that since I was a teenager! Miffed, I applied Clearasil and went about my daily routine. But the next time I checked, the bumps had spread all over my face. I looked like a raspberry! That's when I realized that I was breaking out into hives. I switched from Clearasil to cortisone cream but it didn't get better.

I'm allergic to anything that is alive or ever was alive. I can eat all foods, thankfully. But when it comes to mold, I'm especially allergic.

So that's when I decided to pack everyone up and stay in a hotel for a couple days while the house dried out and the mold died. I called Michelle to tell her, and asked her to throw a comment up telling everyone that I was AWOL for a short time.

If you think staying in a hotel is fun, try staying in a hotel room with two pent-up kids who haven't been allowed to go home all day. Kids who have just seen Over the Hedge and think it's a fantastic movie (who said kids had good taste?). These kids were w-o-u-n-d-u-p. Tighter. Than. A. Top.

They decided to reenact The Matrix, jumping between the two beds and slinging pillows at each other. I tolerted that for a short time before I calmly told them that I was about to skin them alive. Then they settled down into a nice, quiet game of "he's poking me, no I'm not." By the time my boyfriend got to the hotel room (around 10 pm) the lights were out and the kids were lying there quietly, in fear for their lives, while I was reading a book by the light from the bathroom.

"How come the kids are in bed?" he asked.

"Because they need to be," I snapped.

"Uh, OK, then," he replied, tiptoeing to the bathroom.

The next night the kids went to their other parents' houses and we stayed in the hotel by ourselves. He had worked on the house all day, I had gone through another day with the kids. I had taken them to see X-Men 3 (this one was somewhat bleak and very disturbing). It seemed to sober them up a bit. Jim Marsden a.k.a. Cyclops was killed off early in the movie so if you're going so that you can see Jim shine, don't bother. He apparently ticked someone off. It was also strange to see the nerdly Kelsey Grammer as Beast. But these problems are just the tip of the iceburg (as you'll see if you click on the link to read an excellent review of the movie).

It's hard to sleep in a strange bed, but I took a couple of benadryls and was out like a light. Early in the morning, someone opened our door and started to come in. "We're sleeping in here," I hollered, but by then we were wide awake. The hotel has no idea who did it, or how it was done. But it was enough to make us pack up and head home again to the embrace of The Mold.

Here we are, several days after the initial discovery, and I still have bumps on my face. Too bad that's the only thing I have in common with a teenager.

We're back at the house, and we'll see how we do. The boyfriend thinks he got all the mold, but on the advice of a friend (thanks, John!) he's going to tear out a little more to see if there's any more lurking there. With any luck, it's been caught in time.

Goodness knows, I don't want to spend another night in a hotel room.