The Casey's Carpet

The Casey’s Carpet ©

By Michael Casey

I had my entire house re-carpeted a year after I bought it. I was really expensive, but I was still single then so I could please myself and I had nobody’s opinion to take into consideration. I could afford it too because I had no wife and no children either. Wives and children are an expensive game.

So my new carpet was 1987, now 26 years on we really do need a new living room carpet, that’s the most traffic area they say. Notice I used the word “WE” I have a wife and 2 daughters now. So I have to listen to their opinion, or pretend to at any rate. That’s what family is all about, pretending to listen to one another. You can ask any couples you know for their opinion, if you doubt me.

Though some I’m told do actually listen to each other. My uncle used to turn his deaf ear to his wife, or so they say.  Then he could say he didn’t hear what his wife said, when he went ahead and did his own thing. Shanghai wives are known for their beauty, their intelligence, my own wife has a chemistry degree, and their temper/nagging. Just ask any Shanghai husband.

So the first thing to decide is the colour of the carpet.  I love blue as you may have noticed in online photos of our living room. I also don’t want a colour which will show the dirt in seconds. We do follow Chinese convention and wear slippers around the house, we also sometimes wear PJs all day at home until we decide to go out somewhere, even if that somewhere is just to the shops. I don’t have any PJs myself as I wear nothing to sleep in. So I have my house clothes and then my street  clothes.

So what colour does my wife want? Cream.  No, that’ll show the dirt. My girls would like various other colours of the rainbow. My brother has a light green carpet throughout the house. It’s very nice. So what do we do? How do we decide?

We both start looking on the Internet. I liked this, she liked that. Look at this, look at that. We agreed finally, so we sent off for a sample. I had to explain that the fitter is almost as important as the carpet itself. They have tiles in Shanghai you see, so carpets are a very English thing. Then I had to explain about underlay. I even moved a chair to reveal a brand new looking piece of carpet, and we had a bounce on it.

Today as I walked home from the school run with my small daughter I explained the difference between carpets. We have 4 or 5 places that sell carpets. I stopped to show the back of a carpet to her. Cheap rubbish is exactly that, rubbish. As I looked at a carpet outside a shop I told her what my dad used to say, “if you buy cheap stuff you are wasting your money, you end up buying twice.”

So my daughter had her carpet education today, but I know what will happen, my wife will finally choose something. Then it will cost an arm and a leg, and as I faint I just hope I have a soft landing on a nice comfy carpet.