I Really Stuck My Foot In It, This Time...

Literally.

You might recall that renovations are underway in my apartment complex. This has led to jackhammer-caused headaches and attacks of vertigo.

Today, it led to me crying and saying curse words.

The contractors applied a goopy grey mastic over the flashing between the building's walls and the plywood subfloor, preparatory to pouring cement (tomorrow at 8:30 a.m.).

I only noticed the mastic - which blends in nicely with the water-impervious membrane on top of the plywood decking - after it left a grey smudge on my apartment's parquet flooring.

Hmmm...

Nowhere was it posted that the mastic was wet, and it isn't exactly noticeable, as I mentioned.

Unfortunately, I didn't notice the spot of mastic on my parquet until I had the mastic-bearing foot firmly planted on my Persian Rug...

There is now a 3"x3" swath of shoe-shaped mastic on my rug. And, in the process of yelling, and crying, and freaking out - because the rug is very meaningful to me - I tracked three more spots of mastic on the parquet.

I don't give a hoot about the parquet.

There is no way, that I can see, to remove the mastic from the carpet, unless I managed to very carefully shave/cut off the top 1/8" (where the most mastic is located). I already tried a carpet cleaner on it, to no avail.

I have also, I should mention, washed my hands three times, and done two meals' worth of dishes by hand, and I can still smell the mastic on my fingertips.

I am not a happy camper.

And by the way, if you do a Google image search of "unhappy camper," you get a bunch of screaming babies, sulky teenagers, and this guy:

He doesn't look to unhappy. Seriously, with a mustache like that, how could he NOT be happy?