I think I will plant grass in the living room

I hate rugs. I hate big rugs, little rugs, rugs that match Pepto-Bismol pink and rugs that don’t match Pepto-Bismol pink. I prefer short pile to the still mysteriously available shag — I mean why not just inhale from the vacuum cleaner bag if you like dust that much? — and I prefer new looking rugs to “vintage” or “distressed” rugs that look as if twenty years of feet have already stomped over their sad surfaces. Did distressed jeans and jean jackets unleash this silly trend? I don’t know but I would like my rug to start brand new. We don’t buy pre-rusted cars.

Except it’s not my rug. It’s my dad’s rug, a rug that is supposed to cover the old carpets which admittedly need replacement. They looked brighter and less threadbare fifty years ago :-). If the three rugs in question were only equally distressed maybe we could pass them off as a modern attempt at pre-aged carpets. But the dining room has taken the brunt of the damage.

So I am on a quest for rugs. But they seem to come in the weirdest dimensions. I want to cover a simple 9 x 12, and I could use two 8 x 10s. What maniac in the marketing department decided 12′ 2″ x 9′ 7″ was a good plan? No wonder some of these slabs of cloth have made their way to Overstock.com and the like. Why is the “traditional oriental medallion design” 7’10” x 10’2″? I guess that’s kinda-sorta 8 x 10. It would do if I could find a larger counterpart. Papa had matching rugs before and he wants matching rugs now. I want to make him happy.

I priced making rugs of the right size rather than finding them premade. That did not make him happy. Multiple people have been measuring floors and walls since then. Vents and fireplaces complicate life. I just keep exploring websites.

Tonight when I talk to dad I think I’ll discuss the grass plan. Not only will he have more oxygen, he can be in the front of a whole new environmental movement. I hope he laughs. I could use a laugh right now.

Scotty, please beam down new linoleum. The whole problem stems from the fact that fifty-year-exposed linoleum is a radically different color than fifty-year-covered linoleum. But he does not want to replace the entirely functional vinyl/linoleum/whatever-indestructible-material-that-stuff-is. He just wants new rugs.

No linoleum, Scotty? Then please beam me up. I need a vacation. I don’t care if you put me down on the Klingon homeworld of Kronos. Just so long as Kronos has no Home Depot, Amazon, Wayfair, Overstock, rugs-direct, rugsusa.com, bedbathbeyond.com, rugsblah.com, blah, blah, blah…

P.S. And in one of those great ironies of our time, my computer now works pictures of random rugs into almost any search I do.