Carpet Carrying

I had an interesting passenger on the way to work today:

The dining room rug, on its way to the cleaners.

This Oriental area rug is about 30 years old. We bought to go in the dining room shortly after we got married. Over the years it's seen a lot of meals, and holds a lot of memories. At nine feet by twelve feet it's big enough to cover most of the floor in our current dining room, and big enough to barely fit in my car.

With the kids all gone we don't use the dining room as much as we used to, but the rug still gets dirty. Last week I got a postcard from Woodard Carpet Cleaning which offered me a substantial discount on rug cleaning if I brought it to them. I decided it was time to get the rug cleaned. Woodard's office is on the way home from work, so yesterday when Son Donald and Son Brian were around I had them roll up the rug and put it in my car.

My job was to get the car ready. First I took the headrest off the front passenger seat and leaned it all the way back, then folded the back seat forward and let it rest on top of the front one. When the boys got the rug out to the car, they pushed it from the back and I pulled it from the front. In order to close the trunk door I had to rest the rug on the dashboard!

It was interesting driving to work this morning. The rug obstructed the right side mirror, so I had to be very careful. Fortunately traffic wasn't too bad, and I only had to change lanes once. After I got off work I drove to Woodard's office, where two attendants carried the rug inside. I was glad to get it out of the car. The rug will be ready in about a week, and I'll have to reverse the whole process when I pick it up. It will be worth it to have a clean rug, though.