I Wasn't the One Who Spilled It

Well, Joe was gone for this weekend, and for several days in the week before this one, so I don't know exactly when the spillage happened. I did not notice it until this weekend, when Joe was gone, tra-la-la, off to the coast for the weekend with his girlfriend's family. But on the carpet in the room where Joe is temporarily camping out while trying (ha ha) to find himself a job and an apartment and so on, over near the closet door, wasa large spot of Spilled Orange Drink. Some sort of sweet orange drink like Gatorade or Powerade or Nehi Orange soda. In a circle about five inches across and dried as hard as a biscuit.

So I left Joe a note when I came to work this morning, saying, call me, and I will tell you how to clean this up. Now, I know that he is going to give this job a lick and a promise, and I will have to take him to task, and make him do it again. And part of me says, "Oh, hell, just clean it up yourself, life will be so much easier that way, and your house will be cleaner and your rug won't be ruined." But the Good Mother part of me says, "No, it is your responsibility to make him into the best person he can be (even though he is eighteen now) and not allow him to wander out into the world believing that the Rug-Cleaning Fairy will always clean up any mess he makes, or that if you just ignore a spill it eventually vanishes. So he must make a good effort to clean this up -- and then you can go back and really clean it."

So at about eleven-thirty, he called and asked impatiently for instructions, and I explained to him how to clean up an old dried-in spilled-juice spot on your carpet. Then I said, "What is it, anyway? Gatorade?" It wasn't the true orange color of orange juice, you see, so although I do have orange juice in the refrigerator, I knew it had to be some Fake Orange Drink.

"I don't know," said Joe haughtily. "I wasn't the one who spilled it."