bloody mess!

Well, it wasn't exactly blood, but it WAS red, and it was hard to clean up. Fingernail polish actually splashes everwhere when you drop a bottle with a loose lid from the inside of your car. Dammit! We were on the way to the car dealership to drop my car for an oil change yesterday, then off to a mattinee movie (Vantage Point, excellent movie!) to start our weekend of anniversary celebration. I have a black fingernail on my left middle finger from when I got it jammed on the conveyer belt at the grocery store mid-Deccember when a frozen turkey rolled back on it. Since then, I have had to keep on fingernail polish on my otherwise short and brittle fingernails, or endure the inevitable question, "Wow, that must have hurt, what did you do to it?" So, I started putting on the first coat of brilliantly red polish before we left the house, but got sidetracked and had to stop and just took the bottle with me. I figured I could finish once we got to the theater, since it wouldn't be crowded on a Fri. at 11:30 am and we were going to be early.

Well.....I went to put it in my purse once I got in my van, and it slipped out, which is when I realized the lid was just sitting on it. Nail polish went everwhere, surprisingly for such a short fall from such a small bottle. Thank goodness for Betty Boop floor mats, but it still left a 6" streak on the floor carpet, a blob on the carpet, a couple places on the passenger seat, on the vinyl all in the front and at the bottom of the seat, and all over the floor mat. As I reached down with a baby wipe to take up some of it before it completely QUICK dried, like polish is supposed to do, well, that is when I discovered it was on the vinyl on the front of the seat. Which was now on the inside of my arm and elbow area, about 8" worth of smeared polish. I wiped up the best i could, but since it was RED, I think it only got worse.

This is about the time that Mike had circled back around the neighborhood to see why I hadn't followed him out. I couldn't do anything but smile, 'cause how does one gracefully explain splattered nail polish bottle that I was apparently now wearing on my arm and only a little on my nails? I just held up the bunched up red streaked baby wipes, which probably looked like blood from his vantage point, and he asked with a puzzled look, "What is that?!" So, I hesitated slightly before biting the bullet and told him it was nail polish, that I had dropped my bottle on the floor. Of course, he just looked at me increduously and drove off saying, "I'll meet you there." I think he actually shook his head a little, and I do know he was speachless for once. Later he asked me why I was trying to put on nail polish while starting to drive the van, which "of course!" was not my intention at all.

So, by now we're going to be cutting it closer to get to the movies on time, so I didn't have time to go back in and look for polish remover. I figured I'd ask the mechanics at the garage if I could have a spray of wd-40, which should take off the polish on my arm, but the manager lied when he said all he had was window cleaner, idiot, but I wasn't going to waste our anniversary getting in a bad mood by arguing with him. The dealership has about 20 bays in it, I'm sure if I was in my 20's he might have been a little more accommodating.

Off to the movies in polish and with a husband who likes to poke fun and point out the obvious. When we got home later, and Mike had picked up Christopher from pre-school, the little guy was very concerned about what he thought was blood all over my arm. Apparently I had actually managed to get it on BOTH sides of my right arm...in case it wasn't already obvious to passersby.

As soon as we got the house cleaned up a bit, as we were going to have a babysitter over and go out to dinner for our anniversary, I found my 4-yr old bottle of nail polish remover, which was still 1/2 full at that point. It's almost empty now. Used it to get off the offensive polish on my body, and then attacked the carpeting in the van. This is when I discovered just how much splashing that little tiny bottle can do, how far polish can travel when only dropped about 18 inches! Fortunately, most of it came up pretty easily, there is only a small barely visible streak of polish and small blob on the floor, and a tiny blob on he chair fabric. Vinyl cleans up easily, thankfully!

So, the moral of the story is: it's really easier all around when you don't let a frozen turkey smash your middle finger on the conveyer belt bar in a grocery store!

And so we started our anniversary weekend.....