A very funny original story about how one guy decided to buy himself a brand new bean bag chair on the cheap. If you know, this is a shapeless soft ottoman, which is very comfortable to sit on, because it takes the shape of your body, as it is filled with a special material. Often such chairs are filled with foam balls, but with this newly purchased ottoman there was clearly something wrong;)
Last year I rented an apartment in Moscow near the Kuntsevskaya metro station on very favorable terms for me. The advantages were the low cost and large area, but the disadvantages were that the owners were my distant relatives, the obligatory “absence of women” and “order.” The relatives themselves lived outside the city and appeared in Moscow quite rarely. Sometimes Uncle Misha came - a rather old, slightly strange man, who (it seems to me) did not care about anything, except for the cleanliness of the house. "Order" was his fetish. Dust, dirt and a full trash can are unacceptable. There should be a newspaper in front of the front door. He made the bed according to the theodolite - so that there was no degree of inclination and everything was strictly perpendicular.
Uncle Misha came to Moscow on business - to go to an appointment and get medicine at the hospital. I always informed you a week before arrival. He came, spent the night, went to the hospital in the morning and left if he managed to get things done before 6 pm. In general, it didn’t interfere. I tried not to upset his sense of beauty and before his arrival I threw out the trash can, which usually contained a couple of mineral water bottles and a bag of chips. He laid the newspaper in front of the front door himself as soon as he arrived. He really liked it - the newspaper. He always pronounced even the word “newspaper” with particular care.
One day at work, my colleague Seryoga met me and offered to buy a BigBag-type ottoman.
“There’s a discount on the website, two for the price of one,” he said, “do you want us to take it in half?”
I told him the other day that I would like to buy such an ottoman, but the price was prohibitive.
“Oh, go crazy, order two for that kind of money,” I rejoiced. - I want orange.
Seryoga took the green one for himself.
Here he is! Excellent huge ottoman. Bag. Pear shape. Orange. Fire! And at half the price. I brought it home and immediately plopped down in it, took the laptop and got online. After a couple of minutes of sitting in the bag, I noticed the smell. It was similar to the smell of overheated microcircuits, Chinese plastic and diesel fuel at the same time. At first I thought that the laptop had overheated, but something told me that the laptop had nothing to do with it. In general, sometimes smells from neighbors came into the apartment, but this time the smell was too strange. My ottoman smelled.
Another five minutes passed. The smell became stronger and stronger, I was unable to ignore it.
“Probably,” I thought, “that’s what all ottomans smell like when they’re new.” We need to let him air out.
And went to bed. The morning is wiser than the evening.
It was a terrible morning. My head was pounding, and the room smelled of kerosene mixed with foam plastic.
- You should have opened the window! - the voice of Captain Obvious rang out in my head.
I opened the window and went to work. Came back around 10 pm. The apartment stank. I was categorically not happy with waking up again in the atmosphere of a foam gas van, so I decided to look inside the ottoman and see why it stinks so much?
The ottoman consisted of three parts - an outer orange shell, an inner capsule made of thin fabric and a filler - foam balls. Everything stank. But what stank most was the styrofoam. I decided to wash it. Yes. I decided to wash the foam. Balloons.
Do you know how many styrofoam balls were in my ottoman?
There was almost a whole tub of marbles in the ottoman. I poured the contents of the ottoman into the bathtub, it turned out almost to the brim (see KDPV). The foam bath was perfect. A whole bath of little stinky balls. I stuck my hands in there up to my elbows and rustled in the thickness of the foam. It’s a very cool feeling to rustle foam plastic in the bathtub. Then he took out his hands, they were all covered in balls. They were held in place by static electricity. It was easy to shake off the balls, but it seemed to me that if I blew on them, they would all fall off. And I blew. The foam from the bathtub rose 30 centimeters up and settled on the bathroom floor. The balls on the hands treacherously remained in place.
So, the foam was collected from the floor, our hands were cleaned, we had to figure out how to wash the foam. There was an inner thin bag lying on the floor. The initial idea was to wash the foam in this bag and transfer it in portions to the outer shell, but it was inconvenient to scoop the foam out of the bathtub with my hands, so I went to the kitchen for some kind of container. A colander caught my eye. Convenient, two liter capacity and mesh instead of holes.
- Yeah! Just what you need!
Then my gaze fell on the Candy washing machine. Since I was going to wash the foam, why not trust the washing machine to do it? Using a colander, I loaded the first portion of balls into a bag, stuffed the bag into the machine, poured in a portion of powder, poured in rinse aid, turned the knob to “synthetics” (foam plastic is synthetic, after all) and pressed “Play.” After 1.5 hours I realized that I had gone too far with the washing program. Two spins, endless rinses and also rinse aid. What is it all about? I wanted to go faster, but I waited. The foam from the machine simply shone. Not a hint of the smell of diesel fuel. It smelled like alpine herbs. The result inspired me, I decided to wash the next batch, but in the quick wash mode.
The second portion is loaded, quick wash mode. It's about midnight. The phone rings. This is mom. She always calls me in the evenings.
- Hi, how are you? How was your day?
- Yes, it’s okay, I’ve got a lot of work to do, I’m tired.
- Did you eat?
- Yes mom. I ate. Every time you ask if I have eaten and every time I answer the same thing. Aren't you tired?
- No, you are my son. I want to know how you are doing. What are you doing?
— I wash the polystyrene foam
- ....
There was silence on the line
-What are you washing?
“It’s okay, I said, I’ve done the laundry.”
- Ahh... well, okay, go to bed early, don’t delay it.
I really really wanted to sleep. There are still 20 minutes until the end of the wash. I set the alarm clock and buried my head in the pillow. The pillow smelled like foam. I don’t remember how I fell asleep.
The second portion was washed worse than the first, but still okay. It didn't smell like perfume, but it didn't stink either. I stuffed myself with a third serving, set the alarm, and went to bed. I wake up, go to the car, and open the hatch. The bag tore and the balls filled every hole they could get into. The main part, however, remained in the bag, but what spilled out made a big deal. I transferred the contents of the bag to the rest of the laundry and began to shovel the foam out of the washer. I clearly remember that at that moment there was not a single thought in my head. Because, firstly, I just woke up and my brain refused to think, and secondly, why the hell should I think? It needs to be raked out.
Having dealt with the accident, I went to the bathroom and assessed the situation. Three washes have removed almost nothing from the foam bath, the bag is torn, I want to sleep, but I can’t leave it like that, because in the morning I will need to take a shower, and the bath is occupied. More efficient technology is needed. And the technology was found. I decided to pour the powder directly into the bathtub and fill the entire foam with water. So it seemed to me that I would wash the entire foam. I took the pack of Ariel and spilled it onto the foam. He mixed it with his hands and started pouring it all over from the shower.
For some reason, I did not take into account the fact that the density of foam plastic is much lower than the density of water. That is, he does not drown. He pops up. That is, you won’t be able to dip it in water. I realized this only when a mountain of polystyrene foam rose 20 cm above the surface of the bathtub and threatened to fall off the edges. All the water I poured was at the bottom, and above it was a layer of half a meter of foam. It was necessary to make the foam sink. I tried to heat it with my hands and rinse it in the lower layer of water, but the ariel was machine washable and it pinched terribly. Hands were not suitable for drowning foam.
A carpet beater came to the rescue. I paddled the foam like an oar and tried to mix it with the water in the bottom layer. Stupid idea. The laws of physics have always been stronger than me. I really wanted to sleep. I saw it on the edge of the bathtub and twirled the beater in my hands.
- Why do we need a beater at all? Is there a vacuum cleaner missing? Uncle Misha probably uses it. He probably taps every square centimeter of the carpet with special care.
And then a Thought entered my head like a swift jack.
- Uncle Misha! He said that week that he would arrive on Thursday. And now it’s like 3 o’clock on Thursday. His train is at 6 am and will reach Moscow in 3 hours, which means he will already be here at 10. That was the end. This is just what was missing for me.
I painted in my imagination various pictures of Uncle Misha’s arrival. The worst thing is that in none of the scenarios, I could not really explain why I was washing the foam in his bathroom.
Something urgently needed to be done. The main thing is to cover your tracks. First we had to drain the water. I reached for the plug and opened the drain. The water began to drain, the level of foam in the bathtub began to decrease. The decision was made to act head-on. - scoop the balls into a colander and rinse them in the shower. I didn’t want to stuff the foam with Ariel into the bag. The volume of the bath was about 100 colanders. I sewed up the hole and filled the bag with foam in about 3 hours. I hung it over the bathtub to dry.
It was light outside the window. I didn’t notice how morning came. Styrofoam was scattered around the apartment in every corner. He was in the kitchen, in the bathroom (of course), in the toilet, in the bedroom, in the hallway, on the bed, on me and even on the table. It was urgent to collect it. I took a broom and tried to sweep the balls into the dustpan. They became electrified from the linoleum and stuck tightly to the broom. Then I decided to vacuum them up. An old infernal unit of green color and unknown model stood in the corner. I've never used it. The attachments that were lying next to it did not fit this vacuum cleaner and I had to vacuum without attachments with one tube. I chased each ball personally. The dust collector became clogged with polystyrene foam within 30 seconds.
At 8 am I finished cleaning. There was a damp polystyrene bag hanging in the bathroom. I had to get ready for work. I washed, got dressed and, leaving, laid a newspaper in front of the door. Uncle Misha never arrived that day.
