Ewwwww.

A few weeks ago I was lying on my living room floor, poring over a trail map and trying to find a backpacking route which wouldn’t kill myself or my companions. As I was getting lost in the poorly-marked topo lines I suddenly thought, “Hey, what’s that funky smell?”

It turns out that “funky smell” was my carpet which, contrary to what I’d been told, did not seem to have been cleaned prior to my moving in well over a year ago. At least that’s why I’m trying to convince myself, as I’d rather not believe that I’d created that sort of filth.

Today, wielding a cleaner borrowed from my friend Jen, I did a bit of a number on the living room and bedroom carpets. I would not say that they’re clean, per se, but they certainly are cleaner. If nothing else I know for a fact that there’s a lot less dirt in them since that dirt ended up in the dump bucket of the cleaner.

It’s nasty—just disgusting—the sort of grime which has been lodged in that carpet for goodness knows how long. The water was the shade of an old dirty penny and dumping it has left a very unappealing residue in my tub.

I’m not a squeamish person or a clean-freak by any stretch of the imagination, but seeing that water was enough to make me wish I’d hired someone to do this job. Some things you just don’t need to know, ya know? What kind of evil hides in the heart of the nap is one of them.