Nice things that have immediately been ruined

[riverpebbles]

I have loads. But two in particular come to mind.

1. Spent ages choosing a long down coat. Extremely indecisive but also v cold with ds playing football, so this was painful. Then within a week caught it on barbed wire and ripped it. Not badly, mended it invisibly, but the RAGE.

2. New kitchen installed (about 15 years ago) - always going to be stressful. Heavily pregnant, plus my DH got proper flu, so it was two weeks of hell. Within two weeks, I found a bag of potatoes that had rotted and the resulting revolting fluid had seeped right into the lowest shelf of the wall cabinet - you know, the bit that forms part of the structure.

My parents spent months renovating the staircase in our new house in France - the stairs were made from a local (small & dormant) volcano ash that had hardened into rock and was used throughout the town to build various buildings etc, including our stairs. Anyway, parents come home with the food shop and we're all chipping in to take the food up to the top floor where the kitchen is - that's when 10 year old me picks up a glass bottle of olive oil by the lid (one with a corkscrew so not properly secure) and dropped it all down their newly refurbished volcano rock stairs, I mean comic or what ? They were ruined. My mum was furious with me. Absolutely livid.

Still look back thinking why the fuck did they leave it on the stairs when it was prone to leakage anyway ?! Judging by how mad my parents were, they must have had other stressors at play here...

When I lived at home and was poor and on a shit wage I bought a beautiful white dress which not long after disappeared. I was led to believe it was stolen from the washing line perhaps or had lost it. I could never understand it, turns out mum had ruined it in the wash and binned it. My mums a Fantastic mum, brilliant relationship so I don’t understand why she couldn’t just tell me and apologise. I could have dealt with it but I mourned this bloody dress. Found out YEARS later when she confessed.

Conversely when I ruined DD’s favourite blouse, I went and tracked down a replacement and never told her.

Just bought a lovely new mug, used it once and my nephew has just knocked it off the coffee table onto the hearth and smashed it into a million bits.

Bought a new kitchen. Picked really long bar handles that fitted vertically to doors. DH was fitting himself as he is a joiner. Asked his mate who was a kichen fitter to help. Kitchen fitter screwed wrong length of handle into the integrated fr/fr decor panel door so instead of longest handle being fitted to door it was a handle that fitted a middle sized door and was obviously too short once all other handles were fitted. It was the first door as you entered the kitchen and it was open plan so i had the pleasure if even staring at it from my living room chair. RAGE... repeatedly asked for new door to be fitted but DH said it didnt look that bad( it did) and we were selling house on so he didnt see point. Bet it really grated on the next people once they spotted it!!

Paid a fortune for a good quality carpet that covered open-plan lounge, attached dining room, up the stairs & top hallway.
Clumsy& half-pissed ex-DH was painting the ceiling in the top hallway & knocked a large pot of white paint off of the stepladder & it bounced down & then rolled everywhere.
It was my fault of course - according to the vicious nasty bastard I'd married. I should have stopped him painting when I knew he'd had a wee dram.

Got a pair of AirPods for my birthday, and obviously had to unbox and try out immediately. Later went to pop out somewhere in the car and threw them loosely in my back pocket (not in the case). When I got home I noticed only one pod was in my pocket. Went out to car assuming it had fallen out in the drivers seat, happens to my phone all the time. Wasn’t there. Then I spotted it on the road by the car, completely mangled. I’d run over it!!!

Bought an absolutely gorgeous green velvet sofa with a mustard yellow footrest. Took 16 weeks to arrive.

Put it in the lounge and went out for my first night out in two years (had several kids back to back) leaving husband in charge of kids.

Youngest puked all over the sofa and footrest and husband didn’t know what to do so just soaked it up a bit with a cloth and waited until I got home.

The acid in the puke must have reacted with the velvet and I had splash-shaped bleached areas all over the entire thing.

Had to save up for another sofa. Didn’t get velvet this time.

We bought a new microwave (boring I know) we didn't buy the slightly damaged one that was very reduced in price. I dented the new one in the same damn place about a week later

My husband put our brand new macbook under the sofa, I didn't know it was there and bathed the baby in one of those bucket bath things, when I got her out I knocked it over soaking the macbook. It was 2 weeks old

Bought a new laptop and set it up. Decided to do something about the 3 old laptops I had so very proudly followed instructions on YouTube to destroy the hard drives etc. Only when I finished I realised that my new laptop had somehow got swapped with one of the old ones (I blame DC who was looking at them). So I destroyed a week old £500 laptop by ripping it's insides out. Still feel a little sick thinking about it.

Not a new thing, as such, but when dh was a toddler, they lived in a Victorian house that had black, shiny, mirror finish original Lino in the bathroom. One day dh decided to talc himself all over - only he picked up the Vim scouring powder instead, and used pretty much the whole lot.

By the time MIL had finished cleaning it all up, the mirror finish on the bathroom floor was history.

many years 1970s time mum yearned for one of those coffee tables with a scenic picture in tiles on it proudly displayed it when friends of hers were coming round. The first time out someone dropped a cup on it and smashed the tiles to bits. she tried replacing the tiles using vinyl tiles but it was a total disaster and was relegated to the loft
one Christmas morning dad had been treated by mum to a leather jacket proudly put it on to do the round of relatives visiting but getting into the car he ripped the sleeve on a nail. he tried to mend it with invisible stuff he bought but it looked so obvious he could never wear it again

Not expensive but annoying and slightly spooky that it happened twice. On holiday abroad, tourist market, with DS then aged 2. Bought a small musical instrument made of clay from a stall - he loved it, walked along tooting on it for about 5 mins then dropped it on paving stones and it shattered. Fast forward 9 years, same market, same stall, bought same item for DS2 aged 6. Exactly the same thing happened. They're not clumsy children and don't tend to break things.

My friend bought a new Audi.

On the way home with it, an HGV driver hit the side of the car changing lanes on the motorway, destroyed the front and side and all the air bags went off. It was a write off less than an hour after she drove it off the forecourt!

Just remembered the time my Mum gave me money to buy sweets for my classmates on my birthday, in the late 70’s.

I bought a huge bag of Midget Gems from the paper shop, they were measured out and placed into a paper bag.

I crossed over the road and promptly fell onto gravel spilling my treasure and grazing my knees! I picked up said gems and popped them back into the bag!

I still handed them out!

I remember hearing a story about a friend of a friend of a friend who bought a Porsche brand new, wrote it off while driving it home, but the insurance hadn't kicked in yet. No coverage. Could be apocryphal but seemed relevant.

I managed to put a seven inch tear in the back fixed cushion on a brand new thirty minute old sofa.
I had been removing the packaging with scissors and for some reason, stuck them blade side up in the back pocket of my jeans while I put the wrappings in the bin.
Then I sat on the sofa to admire it, forgetting about the scissors, I stood up and caught the material with the point of the scissors as I did so, tearing a seven inches of the material.
It took an entire box of tissues to stop crying.
It spent the remainder of its life with a cushion placed strategically over it to hide it.

Years ago my mum brought me and my sisters horses matching turn out rugs for xmas, we were made up! First time we put them on ( boxing day) my sisters horse absolutely trashed his, im talking sheaded! Anyway we took the rug off, mum cut off the straps for spairs...only to pick the wrong rug up and cut the straps off my pristine rug lol

Another one was the day we had new carpet down my dog had the shits all the way up the stairs, across the landing and right in the middle of our bedroom lol the same dog a week later shreded the capet outside our bed room!

I’ve just been reminded of the time I stood outside M&S with a packet of Percy Pigs and tried to open the bag. Struggled so tried harder. Ripped the packet so hard that they all flew in the air and they all went on the floor.

I was in equal parts gutted and embarrassed so I just walked rather quickly away…

@Cheshirecatwoman
Funny that you didn't notice he was wearing the new coats on two separate dog walking occasions.

I accidentally tore a bit of the fabric on my brand new sofa as I was removing it from its packaging.
That sofa has caused me so much money and hassle, and it’s not even that comfortable. I really regret getting it.

Brand new living room carpet, votive candle exploded and burned a hole 😭 two bloody weeks I'd had it.

I rear ended another car, only minor damage to both thankfully. I got my repair done cheaply so was bet happy, until as I drive away in the snow I reversed into the mechanics car 🤦🏼‍♀️

New kitchen, new Lino, about 2 weeks after it had been fitted I took a hot baking tray out of the oven, it was red hot, burnt through the oven glove, my first reaction was to put it on the floor (I didn't want to ruin the new worktop) of course when I went to pick it up again it had melted a perfect rectangle, in the lino, right in the middle of the kitchen

@Beachsidesunset

Brand new carpet, just laid ... dropped a massive tin of white paint on it. I cried.

Ooo! Just remembered that happened to me back in the mid1970’s. Tin of white paint on a brand new royal blue stairs & landing carpet, I think that I may have cried too.🤣