GROUNDED

Two for the price of one:
Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge
and
Fandango’s Story Starter.
Can you do the Fandango?

“What in the world could have possessed you to do what you did?” she asked.

That was my mother talking … or perhaps I should say “yelling”. And she had every right to yell because I had once again done something stupid. Yes, it was an accident but if I had listened to my mother in the first place this never would have happened.

It all started when I asked my mother if I could borrow her red nail polish to paint my nails for the pool party at my friend Tina’s house. Mom was ok with me borrowing her polish but gave me strict orders to apply it in the bathroom or the kitchen. If I spilled the polish, cleanup would be easy. I was absolutely forbidden to do my nails in my bedroom or the living room; both rooms had wall-to-wall carpeting and any spills or even a drip could spell catastrophe.

So what did I do?

Well, I had to call Tina with a very important question about the pool party and the only phone in the house was in the living room so I sat on the floor and began to polish my toenails while talking on the phone. Have you ever tried to balance a phone receiver with a 3 foot cord attached between your shoulder and ear while trying to do something else with your hands? Take my word for it; it’s not easy.

Now, I’m not exactly sure how it happened but the cord yanked the phone receiver off my shoulder and, in my attempt to catch it, I knocked over the bottle of my mother’s red nail polish … right on the plush white living room carpet.

I watched in slow-motion horror as the bright red polish oozed out of the bottle and was immediately soaked up by the carpet like a sponge. When I came to my senses, I grabbed the bottle and ran into the bathroom, all the while crying “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” I seized the nail polish remover and a rag and ran back to the scene of the crime. I applied the polish remover to the rag and began dabbing at the spill. While I was able to remove some of the polish, it wasn’t enough and I sat there helplessly staring at a 2” diameter patch of drying redish-pink carpet. The topic of getting dried nail polish out of carpeting was never discussed and back then we didn’t have the web to look things up.

The one good thing about this incident was my parents were not home at the time. I ran into the laundry room and gathered an arsenal of cleaning supplies: a scrub brush, detergent, spray cleaner, bleach, scouring powder, rags and a bucket of water. The combination of products and the use of the scrub brush only made matters worse. The 2” spot was now much bigger and pieces of the thick pile had come out. That area of mother’s expensive wall-to-wall carpeting now resembled a man’s balding head. It was a mess and I was up the creek.

So I did the only logical thing. I moved the coffee table about 8” to “hide” the damage. There! From where I stood the problem was solved and no one would be the wiser.

Or so I thought.

I was about to exit via the back door for Tina’s pool party when my parents came home. I heard my mother before I saw her. In fact, I think the entire neighborhood heard her:

“Nancy Ann Schembre! Get in here this second!
What part of ‘do not use nail polish in the living room’
did you not understand?
You deliberately ignored what I said, just like you always do,
and now my carpet is ruined!
Do you think I talk just to hear the sound of my own voice?
No pool party for you, young lady.
You’re grounded for the rest of the summer!”

I stood there unable to move, staring at my mother in disbelief. Grounded again … and this time for the rest of the summer! My life was over!

With head hung low I sniffled an apology and skulked back to my room but I had a plan. Instead of going to my room, I tiptoed down the stairs to the basement and headed for the back door to make my escape. My hand was on the doorknob when I heard a voice from upstairs.

“Where do you think you’re going? I said you were grounded!”

“Oh, man! You’re upstairs! You can’t even see me! How’d you know?”

“Because I know YOU!”

Then came the line that gave me the creeps every time I heard it:

“Besides, I’ve got eyes in the back of my head!”

NAR © 2023

Fandango’s Flash Fiction Challenge #228

Fandango’s Story Starter #106