I've been interestedly following this thread for a chuckle or two, thinking I didn't really have anything to add. Until five minutes ago.
We have an extra bedroom that doubles as a game room/guest room. It's mostly used by my 11-year-old son and his friends to play video games, but when we have overnight company I clean it up, re-wash the bedding, and forbid them entry.
I've had an area rug in that room that I bought when I got my first apartment all on my own way back in the early 90s, so it was in pretty bad shape. Then DS got Thinking Putty in it, which he then put a pillow on top of, which then transferred the putty to the pillow, which was then put on the bed, etc. Purple putty stains were all over the room, even on the wall where the pillow was once propped, with a huge gob on the rug that seemed impossible to get out.
Well, this isn't what has me steamed. We had company a couple weeks ago so I worked industriously to remove all the putty. It came off the wall and the bedding, and it mostly came out of the pillow except for a purple stain, but there was no hope for the rug. My daughter had recently gotten a new area rug for her room that better matched her new decor, even though the old one was still in really good shape (mainly because it was usually nicely protected by her floordrobe, but that's a complaint for another time), so I decided it was time to haul Old Faithful to the curb and replace it with my daughter's castoff. It's an attractive gray and white chevron (is that right? isn't that a gas company? Is it enron? No, that's a company too. The zigzag, you know?) pattern. It suits the room better than the heavy, dark faux oriental that I had, but it wouldn't hide dirt nearly as well so I was a bit concerned.
But--I thought--my son is almost 12, he's not a little kid anymore, and he and his friends aren't the pack of wild animals they once were (this may have been wishful thinking, or putty fumes had gone to my head). And after cleaning out all the junk food crumbs and snack detritus from the room I forbad anymore eating in the room, and it goes without saying that Thinking Putty will never again darken our door. So it seemed safe to freshen the room with a nice newish rug. And it really brightened up the room and looked nice.
Well, it looked nice for a few weeks. The Friday after Halloween my son had a friend spend the night. True to the new rule, they ate dinner and all snacks downstairs, but the next day I went up there and found that they had emptied all my son's Halloween candy out IN the bed and there were about 20 candy wrappers and untold chocolate crumbs in the sheets, under the blankets. Nice. That was cleaned up and I was really stern about NO MORE EATING (AND THAT INCLUDES CANDY) in that room.
Well, we're doing a thorough house-cleaning this weekend before we put up the Christmas decorations next weekend and guess what I found up there on the floor, in the carpet. A popsicle stick, surrounded by gooey purple popsicle mess. Ironically, the exact same shade as the Thinking Putty.
Now, we keep popsicles in our freezer and my son and his friends know they can have one when they want, but they're supposed to eat them outside. My son claims that it was one of his friends who left the partially eaten popsicle on the game room floor. There is reason to believe that's probably true, but he's had a habit in the past of not taking responsibility for his friends' behavior. He knows there's not supposed to be any eating up there and he shouldn't have let his friend eat a popsicle in there, much less leave it on the carpet. It was covered up with--you guessed it-- a pillow-- which leads me to believe that he knew and was trying not to get in trouble.
Now I have a lovely purple stain on my gray and white rug that I JUST put down.
But I have a rug, and I have a house to put it in, and I have a healthy, happy (although right now not so much) son to mess everything up, so of course this is a first world problem.
And now I feel better! Thanks!
The struggle is real; I feel the same way about Valerie Bertinelli, who has single-handedly ruined the Food Network for me. I'm also having a very, very hard time adjusting to the cast changes on the current season of The Crown. Just why? Couldn't they have thrown some make-up on Claire Foy and gotten on with it? 
. 
IDK, she just bugs me. She also hosts a lot of the competition-type shows that I really like but I just can’t even watch them anymore with her. It’s a cooking contest, not a variety hour. Her antics even seem to irk the contestants. 
I’ve actually taken to seeking out the British version of those shows. Both the hosts and the judges are much more low-key and the set-ups are just less “Hollywood-y”.
