Inane House Chores that Makes Me Feel Like an Adult
Sometimes it's the little things that really count. When I bought my house I had never really done a lot of housework before, and then all of a sudden I'm taking care of a yard, trying to fix things when they're breaking and dealing with the bugs that I used to just wait until someone else killed.
When I bought a house, it was mainly because it was a smart financial investment, but I never really thought that I would get a sense of enjoyment out of those types of things. Yet walking into Lowe's, knowing that I needed Roundup to kill me my weeds, and know what aisle it was in kind of made me feel accomplished.
Recently I had three little house chores that I took care of that made me realize that while being an adult is not always fun, it can actually be rewarding.
The case of the mysterious beeping
One day I woke up and I heard beeping. My first response was to put a pillow immediately over my head and hope that somebody else would come to fix it.
Unfortunately when you live alone, there is no one that is going to come fix up things for you, so I did what any responsible adult would do and took the battery out and went to work. I was going to grab a battery on my way home, but I decided to go home just to see what else I needed so I wouldn't have to go shopping multiple times in one week.
I walked in the door and still heard beeping, which was weird because my smoke alarm battery was in my purse. I looked around a little bit more thinking I must've missed something. Soon, I was back on the chair digging around, wondering what I could've possibly mess.
I hopped off the chair, exacerbated, and found the answer laying beside me on the ground. The beeping was coming not from my smoke alarm but from my carbon monoxide tester.
I took the battery out of that and realized I actually already had a replacement battery, so I popped in the new battery and the beeping stopped. Easy right?
Wrong.
I put the battery from my purse back into the smoke alarm and hit the test button. Nothing happened. Perhaps the battery wasn't in right, so I fiddled with it some more, got the cover back on and the battery is still did nothing. Jokes on me, it was actually dead too, and who knows for how long.
I ran to the store to grab some batteries, came back and fiddled the new battery into place and the beeping persists.
As I'm quickly losing my mind, I go downstairs to start googling for answers. The beeping is driving me nuts. I go back upstairs and take the battery back out because -- well I might as well die in a fire so at least I won't have to listen to the beeping anymore.
I look still don't really see anything online that is of use, so I go and just put the battery back in. The beeping relentlessly continues. The beeping and the hunger get the best of me and I run downstairs to start some dinner. Just as I'm turning on the stove and finding the noodles to eat my anger away. Our of nowhere, the beeping stops. Might I die in a fire? Yes, but at least the beeping is over.
Fishing in the sink
The next success I had as a homeowner was when I accidentally dropped a little marble from the moss balls bowl down the sink. I reach my spoon down there, shined a light and I grab what I think is the only marble ball down there. I turn on the garbage disposal, just to test our my theory that there was only one down there, you know -- because at the time that seems like a reasonable thing to do -- and it turns out it was definitely not the only marble stuck down there.
I reach down the hole and fish around, kind of nervous that it might just randomly turn on and my hand turning to mush. Luckily that didn't happen, and I ended up pulling out the marble without any injury. It might sound like a really stupid success story, but all I can say is I have never actually fixed a garbage disposal before, so I can add that as a notch on my bedpost of homeownership.
My unexpected roommate
One Monday night I went to Richmond Restaurant Week and came home quickly to change for basketball. As I'm going to the bathroom, I turn to flush the toilet and see the largest reddish jumping spider that you could possibly see. My arms immediately turn to goosebumps and I grab at anything to try to kill him. As I open the door, he hops by me into my main room.
I couldn't find him anywhere, but needed to go to the game, so I left him at home alone. If selling a house because of an insect was a real excuse, I would have done it.
A week passes, and I come downstairs to get water, flick on the lights and i feel something on my naked leg. My leg was naked, but so was my entire body. I felt vulnerable, but I couldn't let him win again.
I see him dark under my couch, and am terrified. He lives here now. But then I get a second wing and go ape-shit. I've got that bitch cornered, with a broom in one hand and a vacuum in the other. I shove the couch out of the way and he hops toward me. Next think you know, I'm screaming and hitting him with the broom. Once he was dead -- very dead -- I vacuumed him up. While I still hate killing bugs, I must say I felt pretty accomplished killing it on my own.