Saturday, January 09, 2010

Water Soaked Carpet? Coonass Move.

Coonass (koon'-ass) n. - slang; a person of Cajun ancestry. Laurie is a coonass.
Coonass (koon'-ass) adj. - inept, done without forethought. That was a coonass move.

Our temperatures here in southeast Texas have been ridiculously cold for my warm lizard blood. The low last night was 23 degrees. Brr.

Thursday night, our local news reported that letting your water pipes run overnight is an acceptable method for preventing your water pipes from freezing and possibly bursting. (NOTE: This isn't appropriate everywhere, but Beaumont's water system is equipped for this type of pipe protection.)

So before I went to bed last night, I turned on the water in my kitchen sink to let it run. I also started my dishwasher. This was a coonass move. (See definition above.)

Whenever my dad would do something which led to a f*ck up (either major or minor), he would call himself a coonass.

Falling off a unicycle while trying to learn to ride - "Coonass!"

Running over a dog bone in the back yard while cutting grass resulting in a gashed leg (his leg) - "Coonass!!"

Stepping off a 2 x 4 in the attic and putting his foot through the kitchen ceiling - "Coonass!!!"

There were other colorful words used by dad at those times, but the common word to every incident was "coonass."

When I stepped on my water soaked dining room carpet this morning, I thought I had a burst pipe and my anger was directed toward Mother Nature and her stupid sub-freezing temperatures. Upon further Googled investigation, however, I discovered that dishwashers drain through the garbage disposal.

Evidently, letting water pour into the top of a garbage disposal all night, at the same time the dishwasher is trying to drain through the side of said garbage disposal is a bad idea. A "coonass move," so to speak.

Even though I've spent most of the morning trying to suck the water out of my carpet with my wet-vac, it's still soaked. So, I've decided to spray the carpet with vinegar (to prevent stinkage) and open my patio doors.

I will continue the wet-vac sucking later, but for now I'm sitting on my couch bundled up in my Snuggie, a hoodie and a down blanket as a 35 degree breeze flows past my easter-egg smelling carpet.

Coonass.

5 comments:

The Grandpa said...

I think all of us have our coonass moments. Once when i discovered we were out of detergent for the dishwasher, I used hand dishwashing detergent in. Not only did swim through our kitchen in a sea of bubbles, I called a repair man because "my dishwasher is leaking." He actually laughed at me.

I also stepped off a beam in the attic and put my foot through the dining room ceiling. I caught myself on a beam, and when I looked down through the hole, it didn't registerthat it was the dining room below. We'd recently moved in, and I thought I'd discovered another room we hadn't seen before.

TBM said...

Oh dear...

Leiah said...

Chere' this coonass did the same thing Thursday night..you know the night we were supposed to drip our faucets? The only saving grace here was my insomnia which kept me up after I started the dishwasher and heard the sound of water dripping into water instead of an empty sink. When I told That Man about it and that I didn't know that could happen all he could do was shake his head and say, "Coullion."

Laurie said...

Grandpa, hahahaha!!

Just, yucky!

Queen, that's weird! I wonder how many other people it happened to.

Unknown said...

You're lucky it was just water from the dishwashers. My coonass move? It was so stupid that only expert carpet cleaners (Greensboro, NC-based) were able to fix it.

It happened one night when I arrived home groggy because of work, and I decided to make myself some iced coffee. After brewing some, I did the coonass move: I poured the coffee to a PLASTIC container. Brilliant, right? The morning after that, the whole house smelled like coffee. The mess was a breeze for the carpet cleaner (Greensboro, NC-based), but forgiving myself wasn't easy for me.