The Carpet

I had a dinner party at my father’s two bedroom flat last week as there is more room there than in my tiny studio. There was a fair amount of drinking and dancing and I woke up the next day to find red wine on the walls, chocolate on the cream sofas, squashed tangerine on my mother’s dressing table which was a trail which lead to my own bedroom where a red wine, chocolate and tangerine puke mixture laid on my sheep skin rug and carpet in my dad’s bedroom which I concluded could only have been my best friend Henry.

Henry had left in the early hours of the morning though and when he finally answered his phone and I told him to come round and clean up his sick he denied that it was him.  After pressing him and explaining that it was not the two girls who had joined us he then admitted that it could have been him but was too busy to do anything about it.  So, I ended up cleaning the mess, but without much success.  The puke was the kind that wasn’t solid and when trying to scoop it up it would just mush further into the carpet.  I tried some vanish, which didn’t work. Furious, I called Henry up, explained that my Dad would go mental when he comes back and Henry told me to book an industrial cleaner, which I did. 

The next day on Monday evening when he came round to inspect the his first reaction was:

“My God it stinks in here.” 

“I know.  It’s your red wine, chocolate and tangerine puke on my dad’s bedroom carpet.” 

Henry laughed and first inspected the wall where the red wine was.

 “Oh, that’s not bad at all!  When you said there was red wine on the wall and a smashed glass I thought you meant that I had thrown a glass of red wine against the wall.”

“You thought that that’s something you’d do when you’re drunk?”

“This is no problem.” He said inspecting the wall like a professional surveyor. “We’re gonna have to paint over that.”

 “With what?”

 “Do you have any tip-ex?” 

Henry used water and a sponge and rubbed it so hard that it took the paint off the wall. So the patch was no longer red but it was missing a big chunk of paint.

Henry then inspected the carpet and had a solution for that too. 

“Right that is rank.  What we’re gonna have to do is get a stanley knife and cut out the carpet and then put your sheep skin rug over it.”

“We’re not cutting out the carpet and my sheep skin rug is in the bin because that’s covered with your sick too.”

Henry laughed.

“Well you don’t want an industrial carpet cleaner.  They don’t know shit about cleaning carpets. Those people are idiots.  Trust me, I’ve hired them before.” 

“Then why did you tell me to order one?”

Henry didn’t answer and got undressed out of his smart pin stripe suit into his boxer shorts and took out a set of four different cleaning products.

“Don’t worry, I know what to do with this. Basically I’m going to need to come round here every night for a week and scrub and dry and scrub and dry.” 

Henry started scrubbing my carpet and spraying on a horrible summer freshener so my dad’s whole room went from smelling of vomit to a really sweet and sickly bubble gum.

Henry told me to cancel the carpet cleaning but by now it was past the cancellation deadline and my card would be charged 40% of the cleaning fee. I told Henry he would have to pay for it. So Henry called the company and re-arranged the cleaning for the next week, saying that he’d cancel at the end of the week so we’re within the 24 hour deadline. I told him I didn’t want to hear about the carpet cleaner ever again. 

Henry got back into his suit and took his cleaning equipment with him, perhaps he had another friend’s carpet to clean? I asked him:

“Do you not get bored with always having to sort your drunken mess out?  It seems like your whole life is about reaching equilibrium?  You never actually manage to get above just okay.”

Henry shrugged and left.

I stayed in the flat that night and woke up the next day with a terrible sore throat which Henry told me is

“Obviously from all the chemicals I sprayed on your carpet, you idiot. Why did you sleep there?!”

Friday came and it turned out Henry had forgotten to cancel the carpet cleaning and I’d been charged for the first cancelation anyway.

So I called Henry up to check that he’d cancelled the next one and he said he thought it’s a good idea for the carpet cleaner to come anyway. 

“I don’t want him to come!  Cancel it!”

 “I’d be happier if he came.”

“I don’t care! Cancel it!  And they’ve also charged me so you owe me for that too.”

“Right, what you need to do is call your bank and tell them your card has been stolen and order a new one and you’ll get a refund from the carpet cleaning.”

 “I’m not getting a new fucking card because the carpet cleaners you told me to order have now charged me for the carpet cleaning you told me to cancel because “they don’t know shit about cleaning carpets.”

“Well, I’m not paying for it.”

“Mate this is your fault!”

“And I’m offering you a solution but you’re not taking it.”

I hung up on him and ended up paying a fortune for a cleaner that never came.

My Dad came back, asked what the hell was the horrible smell, what was the bit patch on his carpet and what was up with the walls. I suggested that we cut it out with a Stanley knife and put a rug over it.

“No! You are not cutting up my carpets! What on earth have you done here?!”

I told him it was Henry and he told me I needed to find different friends. I also can’t have any more dinner parties in ‘Daddy’s’ flat any more.

Written by Harry