And why is the carpet all wet, Todd?

Life imitated art (well, a Chevy Chase Lampoon movie) last night, and I’m shittin rainbows over it!

Yesterday, I had to re-assemble my Department 56 Christmas village I mentioned in an earlier post. The strand of twinkle lights that I placed under the blanket of snow to emulate the sparkly magic of Christmas-time blew out. So I had to replace them. Happy f#*@ing Christmas, ya know? Normally, I would have been highly irritated about wasting my time re-doing something I already did, but M and I turned it into a festive occasion. M wrapped gifts, the cats were piled up on the couch, a festive “I only have one more day of work” mentality pervaded the atmosphere...and we played National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation in the background.

For some reason, this year - of all the years I’ve watched this damned movie - I found the Griswold’s cameo-relegated neighbors to be butt-clenchingly hilarious. They’re only in three or so scenes, but they pried the show right from Chase's grubby hands. I lost my shize during the scene in which they discover the mess Clark’s antics left in their house. Earlier in the film, Clark was hanging exterior Christmas lights on his house and, as dictated must happen in nearly every one of Chase’s contracts, Clark falls off the ladder. Ah Chevy, you fall guy you, with the sexiest chin cleft that exists, past, present or future! Clark grabs onto the gutter, and in a very Chevy-Chase slapstick show, the block of ice that had formed in the gutter shoots out of it, breaks the neighbors’ window, and causes havoc in the currently vacant neighbors’ house.

When Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Nicholas Guests’ yuppie neighbor characters arrive home, they are aghast at the mess. They’re sizing up shards of glass and broken knickknacks when Dreyfus’ character discovers the melted ice on the carpet.

“And why is the carpet all wet, Todd,” Dreyfus asks incredulously, haughtily drawing out the name “Todd.”

“I don’t know, Margo,” replies the equally snooty and exasperated Todd.

A laugh escaped me. This is comedic gold!

I’ve chuckled at this line during previous viewings, but this year it struck me as particularly funny. So, during the rest of the movie, I continually exclaimed “And why is the carpet all wet, Todd?” and then would laugh to myself, because that’s how I roll.

Well – toward the end of the movie, I had to grab something from behind the couch. In my stockinged feet, I walked over to the couch, leaned behind it to grab a blanket, and felt a pit in my stomach form as my foot become cold and wet.

I looked down to discover I was standing in a puddle of amber-colored liquid with two paper towels meekly floating in it. I became enraged. What is this? What am I stepping in? What is this half-assed attempt to clean it up? (The two floating, soaked paper towels obviously did shit to help the situation.) Dammit, M! He had a habit of spilling things (mostly cans of Diet Coke, as in this case) or dropping ice cubes on the kitchen floor and letting them melt, and not cleaning it up. My socks, invariably, find these messes. “Wet Sock Syndrome” has become my nemesis during my long tenure with M.

“Why is the carpet all wet, Babers?” I asked incredulously, haughtily drawing out the name “Babers,” and OH MY GOD! I HAVE BECOME JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS!