My Sordid Past with Mod Podge

Mod Podge and I have a history together. Not a warm-fuzzy-gives-me-tingles history, but one that makes me break out into a cold sweat.

Our oh-so-tangled past began when I was around the tender and impressionable age of 12 or 13. I went to the art store with my mom, on one of her frequent trips there. As a child I became very familiar with the art store. My mom is an Artist. A real one, with a capitol A. She paints watercolors, oils, acrylics, and oozes talent from every pore. ( You can meet her HERE)

I ramble.

We were strolling through the isles. I always enjoyed parts of these forays, when bored there was always the pen section- where you could test almost any of the markers or pens on the pad of paper supplied. We entered the glue isle, and it is here that the how and why's become a little blurry. I think I told my mom I would carry the Modge Podge for her. It was quite a large jar too- Super Sized Mod Podge. I trailed behind her, white goop in hand, when I guess I decided to toss it and catch it and walk at the same time. Except, I never got to the catching part.

I tossed the Mod Podge up into the air...and instead of landing in my outstretched hands, it landed on the carpeted floor. And exploded. White globby goo everywhere, seeping into a giant circle in the middle of the aisle. Soaking into the stores carpet.

I died. Right then and there. I was mortified. I, the child who wouldn't order my own food at a restaurant for fear of drawing attention to myself. I just made mixed-media-art out of that stores carpet.

I looked at my mom in horror. I think she must have seen the fear/humiliation/agony on my face, and the tears pooling in my eyes, because after we told the store clerk, she allowed me to wait in the car while she finished up in the store.

To this day, I still can not go in there. I don't know if it was a dream, or if I really did go in once, but in the back of my mind I can see a cloudy stain on the floor, the messy remains of my first Mod Podge encounter.

Only now, as a mom myself, do I realize how embarrassed my mom must have been. And I wonder, did she have to pay for my mess too?

Tonight I had flashbacks to that day. I was creating, and in the creating-zone, when I bumped my jar of Modge Podge and nearly sent it flying onto the floor. Thankfully, it only splattered the floor, and most of it got on my sons booster seat strapped to one of our chairs. My husband came over and helped me clean it up. He always says to let him do it, so that if the carpet gets ruined, he only has himself to blame. Did you know that hot water and shaving cream will clean almost anything off the carpet? And leaves it smelling good too. How? Don't ask. It is my husbands cure-all for any mess on the carpet. Dog threw up again? Shaving cream, of course. It kindof reminds me of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and the fathers obession with Windex. Whatever works, right?

Mod Podge disaster averted, and I think I can bring myself to open the jar again tomorrow and finish my project.

My husband just said "I know, you don't do this stuff to create stuff, you do it to get stories to write about. That's what you guys are really doing. You think 'I wonder what I can get my husband to clean up tonight'" and then he walked off rambling something like this (in a fake woman's voice) "My husband Modge Podged his butt to the toilet seat..."

You're right honey, that is EXACTLY why we do this stuff.

{Edited to add- Go visit my lovely Mother's blog and say hello!}