One cup of coffee is all that it takes. When coffee is taken in the wrong place, in the bedroom instead of the kitchen or dining room, a spill can require a lot of cleaning and even some permanent damage. Just like our words, once spilled, cannot be taken back. The damage has been done.
In this case, the spill affected the hardwood floor, bed frame, pillow case, pillow, duvet cover, down-filled comforter, bed sheet, and mattress cover. It took all morning to spray stain remover and scrub at the dark stains, even though they were small in size.
What an ordeal for a cup of spilled coffee. If each of those items were individuals affected by one thing that we said, how exhausting is the clean up in the aftermath? Imagine if each person requires a different kind of apology or explanation:
The pillow case and duvet cover types can be placated with an apology, a bouquet of roses, or a surprise gift. However, you must repair the damage right after it’s been done for the most effectiveness. And although these people are understanding of your apology, you still have to spend time and money buying that forgiveness.
The pillow types are the people who you can try to apologize to but it only gets worse. The stain is impossible to remove because it is too deep. The more you wash it, the more the stain spreads. You just have to do your best and stop cleaning when you realize it isn’t getting you anywhere.
Sometimes, it seems the only people who were hurt by your words are those who you know were affected. But then there are those you’ve overlooked. With the coffee spill, only upon closer inspection did we find that the down comforter, bed sheet, and mattress cover had also been affected.
The comforter types are the most sensitive. You can’t scrub too hard because their fabric is thin, you might do more damage in apologizing. Sometimes you have to leave them be and rely on the duvet cover. When you can’t atone for your harsh words, you may just have to get past them and put on a nice face like nothing happened.
The mattress cover and bed sheet were minimally affected, but affected nonetheless. Once identified, these stains were easily removed, but could have also been easily overlooked. Over time, the small coffee stains could have become permanent. And at that point, they would have required more effort to remove.
That morning, I woke up to the chaos of these coffee stains. I spent hours with stain removers, brushes, and hot water, cleaning someone else’s mess, silently grumbling about the person who spilled the coffee. The entire time, thoughts floated in and out of my mind of what I would say to him to make him realize how much of my precious time he wasted. But then I looked down at my hands and thought about the labor required in cleaning up one single spill, and it made me see that I would be an idiot to say those things. Wasn’t it obvious how much damage a small slip up could cause? It just wasn’t worth it. I’d rather spend days cleaning fabric rather than trying to clean up hurt feelings.
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