"My Life with You Is Never Dull."

Brain cancer is...

...prone to look on the bright side.

I believe I am within Darrell's contractual duties (Christine) to report that every Thursday this semester Darrell has helped me in the morning to unload and set up for class at an elementary site with Block Four.  Then, for nine weeks, he has returned to pick me up at the end of class, always without incident. All very civil. 

Then came today:  Week Ten, the final session.  Drop off and set up?  Smooth.  Packing up and leaving at the end of the day? Eventful.  Witness our fingernails, above.

In what should have been, literally, my last five minutes on the school site for the semester (and, oh, the year), the lid on the black paint in my loaded cart failed, and paint spread over the carpet and, oh, out the door.

Does Murphy's Law cover paint spills:  Black paint?  Big container? Last day? 

Darrell was shocked into silence and stillness for the first minutes of the calamity.  Then he joined me and leapt to action, action that turned out to be fruitless and further upsetting.

An hour into lunch, Darrell regained thought and speech and said, "My life with you is never dull."

I will be forever grateful to my husband for his choice of words at that instant.

Thanks also to the Team D members who have somehow shared in the pain and the potential solution.

What We Learned about Forensic Science and Whether Murder Is a Good Idea

As we were attempting to control the damage, all I could think of was all of the Forensic Files we have ever watched, which is a lot.  Just substitute "paint" for every Forensic Files scene that includes the word "blood."

The crime scene:

(For scale, see the chair and table legs in the margins.)

Obvious attempts were made to clean the scene, but the only result was smeared _____. 

"There was ___ everywhere!  So much ___!"



"How to contain the source of still oozing ___?  Use a plastic tarp.  Throw all the ___y cloths and the container/body onto the tarp.  Wrap it all up.  Carry the mass away to a distant trash can.

"Check the door handle and threshold.  Is there more ____?  Yes!  It's very difficult to remove splatter and residual ___."

"Can the carpet be cut?  The furniture be moved?"  (No.  This never works.)

What we learned from our experience was that there may be no better deterrent to murder than a serious black paint spill.

So maybe that lesson was enough to justify the pain and carpet mess?  We'll let you know after we stop shaking.