The Adventures of Geo Beane: Day 16 of Renovations

Saturday was almost a loss.

Humphrey knew he couldn't have me with him in the house. Too much afore mentioned hazards. He needed to put down at least one coat of varnish on the floor that he had exposed yesterday to seal in the golden-ochre-colored dust. Mrs. B. was still in Washington, DC. In fact, she would be away all weekend. I could tell what was ahead, at least in part...

"Beanieboo, there's nothing I can do. You wait here, and I am going to put in an hour or two to seal the floor."

The good news was that once dry, it would be possible for me to go back to the renovation site and see all the work that Humphrey had put in since my exile. The place was starting to feel more and more like a home as we pulled out traces of the prior owners. When I say traces, let me be more specific.

In the afternoon, Humphrey was again golden as his word. He put in some work at the office on his upcoming TikTok and other work projects, and then stole us over to the house for the remainder of the afternoon. Our task was to pull up more rug. Humphrey was cutting. An arduous task involving regular utility scissors with orange handles. Small cut after small cut, which I could see scraping into Humphrey's hands.

Mwrrgh. He didn't know it yet, but I could already scent that he was going to have blisters. I sniffled my wet nose into his wrist to remind him to slow down. This in between scouring the clues in the scene. I didn't find too many traces of Nick, but Amber, was a very messy girl. There were traces of her everywhere.

When we first started work on site, I was too polite to mention. I suppose I thought they might be back or something to make amends... In the kitchen, there was left over trash in the waste bin. Most notably a bag of frozen cauliflower. Yes, cauliflower; and it smelled revolting. But more than this, Amber had left used, used, sanitary napkins strown about, not only in this garbage can, but on the property outside. Had there not also been unused opened tampons on the windowsills, I would have thought to myself it must have been some passing stranger that had so grossly littered, cause who would foul up their own yard?!

But there were more Amber leftovers. Upstairs, there where she slept, she shed all sorts of parts of her true/ artificial self. There were acrylic fingernails. Used acrylic fingernails. Peeled. Not many, but two or three, isolated. One in the hall. One in the closet of the smallest bedroom...

In the presumably Master Bedroom, she left her eyes.

Gross. I mean, she left her used contact lenses in the carpet. Maybe they had fallen out and she had looked desperately on all fours to find them... but could not and so cried herself to sleep on their final night... But I doubt that. And fortunately, there were no used condoms left from her and Nick. Somehow, I picture Amber lying in bed, without concern for Nick or anyone in the world, and ejecting the sliver disks of bluish gel out of each eye and flinging these onto the carpet. For the "next time" somebody vacuums... which obviously wouldn't be for a while.

There were also remnants of the cat. Quite a tidy creature, despite his associates. I imagine that the stray pieces of kibble that I was finding in the edges of the carpeting had gotten there by Amber's sloppy serving, rather than by the Tiger's poor eating habits. The cat was obviously hungry, and gray in color, as the fur was blending in excellently with the silver carpet and to be honest there really wasn't all that much of it, so Tiger was also an admirable self-groomer. Unless Nick was taking care of the cat upon himself... maybe, but I doubt, judging by the dog mess. The dog, our fearsome Gunther, had left his calling card all over the place by way of urine and vomit "accidents."

Humphrey was generous and let me help as best I could with rolling up the slices of rug he was cutting. I prodded it along between his arms as he leaned over and pushed it all into a tight cylinder and then carried each piece out into the hall.

"Let's call it quits, Beanie. My back is killing me," said Humphrey.

Hmwgh. mwrrh. Poor Humphrey! I would be sure to massage his back tonight by walking over it with gentle paws.