I have come to the conclusion that there are some mornings when the universe simply wakes up and says, “Let’s see how much this woman can take.”

Apparently, this was one of those mornings.

I am currently recovering from a recent stroke, which has left me slightly unbalanced physically. This is important information for what follows.

I awoke this morning to a ghastly smell accompanied by shrieks of alarm coming from my ten-year-old grandson in the bathroom.

He had, once again, experienced a gastrointestinal catastrophe.

The likely culprit? A perfectly innocent-looking evening at Lazy Dog, where he had consumed cheesy dips, followed at approximately 8 p.m. by a marshmallow-covered brownie and ice cream.

Apparently, his digestive system had filed a formal complaint.

What greeted me when I entered the bathroom was something that can only be described as a sh--t show.

There stood my half-naked grandson, covered in poop from the waist down, looking suitably mortified.

There was no time to think.

On my hands and knees, I began scooping up steaming piles of evidence and hurled them into the toilet while my daughter whisked the boy away to the shower.

I mopped.

I disinfected.

I disinfected again.

I did a load of laundry containing the affected clothing and bath mat.

And then, because apparently I had not yet suffered enough, we raced off to my house to continue clearing out the garage in preparation for the contractors who are starting work next week.

This is where the morning took a turn from disgusting to biblical.

I looked up at a high shelf containing four cans of paint. One of them happened to be the exact shade I needed for a tiny touch-up in the upstairs bedroom.

Excellent!

I reached up to retrieve it.

CRASH.

The entire shelf collapsed.

Two large cans of paint hit the garage floor and promptly emptied themselves across it.

Vanessa was somewhere else on the premises.

I was alone.

I panicked.

My freshly cleaned house was only a few steps away, so I raced inside, grabbed a tea towel from the kitchen and began trying to mop up two enormous spreading pools of paint with what was essentially a glorified dishcloth.

This was clearly not going to work.

So I decided I needed a bigger towel.

Naturally, the towel was upstairs.

Remember: I have had a stroke.

I gingerly made my way upstairs, found a gigantic beach towel, and carefully made my way back down.

I flung the towel over the paint.

There.

Problem solved.

Except, of course, it wasn't.

So I consulted ChatGPT.

At this point, even artificial intelligence was being dragged into my Saturday morning disaster.

ChatGPT advised me to find a piece of cardboard and use it to push the paint into one large pile, which I could then mop up.

Sounded reasonable.

I found the cardboard and began pushing.

Unfortunately, paint has apparently never read the instructions for staying in one place.

Instead, it splattered everywhere.

There were splatters throughout the garage.

Splatters outside the garage.

Splatters leading all the way to the trash cans, where I had deposited one of the now-useless tea towels.

I was in despair.

I was about to go back inside when I noticed something.

Paint.

On my newly cleaned red tile floor.

And not just one little spot.

There was a trail.

A trail of paint leading from the garage through the dining room, then the living room, toward the stairs.

I followed it.

Paint on the blue carpet.

I looked up.

Paint on the stairs.

Not one stair.

Not two.

Every single wooden stair.

At this point I had reached a level of desperation usually reserved for disaster movies.

I kicked off my paint-covered shoes and noticed William's discarded socks lying on the floor.

And so, in what may have been the most ridiculous moment of the entire morning, I put on my ten-year-old grandson's abandoned socks and proceeded to wipe every single stair before the paint could dry.

One stair.

Two stairs.

Three stairs.

All the way up.

Carefully.

Because, once again, I have had a stroke.

I finally reached the top.  And then had to precariously make my way down, trying not to slip on the wetness.

At the bottom of the stairs stood Vanessa.

She looked at me.

I looked at her.

She looked past me toward the garage.

The paint was now gently flowing out of the garage and onto the driveway like some sort of slow-moving toxic river.

We stared at it.

Then we cleaned.

We wiped.

We mopped.

We picked up.

We even hosed.

We did whatever two women can possibly do when confronted with an expanding sea of paint and the knowledge that contractors are arriving next week.

And somehow—miraculously—we got ourselves cleaned up and raced home just in time to get Britte to her ice-skating lesson.

By then I had experienced:

A grandson covered in poop.

A bathroom biohazard.

A mountain of laundry.

A collapsed shelf.

Two exploding paint cans.

A paint-covered garage.

A paint-covered driveway.

A freshly cleaned kitchen towel sacrificed to the cause.

A beach towel sacrificed to the cause.

Paint on my red tile.

Paint on my blue carpet.

Paint on every stair in my house.

A pair of ten-year-old boy's socks serving as emergency cleaning equipment.

And the humiliation of having to admit that I had consulted ChatGPT in the middle of a paint disaster.

All before lunch.

I have now decided that recovering from a stroke is exhausting enough without adding household disaster management to my rehabilitation program.

Next Saturday morning, I am staying in bed.

I don't care if the house catches fire.

I am staying in bed.

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