Oh, The Things I Deal With...

Several little housewifely annoyances today.

I went to the basement to do some laundry this morning, and saw that the top of the washer and dryer (or is it spelled drier?) were covered with little reddish...things.  They looked like little pieces of dried ground beef.  But for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how that would make sense.  Also, there was a large sticky-looking yellow-brown spill all over the basement floor, which had stained one corner of my "laundry carpet".  That carpet is the one nice thing demarcating my own little "clean cozy laundry area" from the rest of the cold and dingy basement.  I wasn't very happy about the intrusion of that inexplicable stain into my little haven.  A little later, when taking some trash to the outside trash can, I saw a whole two-pound package of ground beef sitting in there (and my money-conscious self was shocked at the waste!).  Alright, what the heck? Obviously, Tom had something to do with all this, and had "forgotten" to mention it to me...

I sent him an e-mail at work to ask him about these three strange occurrences.  I titled it "queries"

1. Why did you throw away 2 pounds of ground beef?
2. Was that dried bits of ground beef that I found all over the top of the washer and dryer??
3. What is that big nasty spill down in the basement?  It's brownish-yellow.  It kinda looks like oil.  Is it your beer?  It's staining a corner of my blue carpet.  Can you clean that up tonight?

As I suspected, it all had to do with his attempt to brew homemade beer on Saturday night (when I was, thankfully, out of the house).  He responded:

1. Why did you throw away 2 pounds of ground beef?  It was really nasty after the cats got into it.  I had pulled it out to use the ground beef bags as big ice cubes to cool off the water in the basement sink, and I just put them on top of the washer when I was done.  I went down a little later to finish cleaning up from the brewing, but the cats had torn into the ground beef bags, eaten a bunch of it, and made a huge mess.
2. Was that dried bits of ground beef that I found all over the top of the washer and dryer??   Must be.  I tried to clean it all up but must’ve missed some.
3. What is that big nasty spill down in the basement?  Mostly hops.  It's staining a corner of my blue carpet.  That carpet is gross.  Can you clean that up tonight?  Yeah, I’ll clean it up more thoroughly tonight.

Ugh.  Who uses frozen food as giant ice cubes?  Who leaves FRESH MEAT sitting out right near where the cats have their food dishes? Who knowingly spills hops all over the floor, and leaves it there?  Oh yes...my husband...sighhh.

To make it worse, shortly after the e-mail exchange, the sink into which the waste-water from the washer empties got all backed up while I was washing clothes, and filthy water is now covering the floor (and my rug).  At my kind (and maybe a little desperate) request, Tom will spend the evening in the basement, restoring the area to some sense of cleanliness.