Screening....or screaming?

Even with the house having been for sale for quite a while, we still putter around finding things that could look better. When Venise, our Realtor, was here in the spring, she helped us clean the kitchen and she also took down the screens on the kitchen bay windows so we could clean them. We didn't think there was any hurry to get it done, because the view was even clearer without the screens, and we knew we wouldn't need the screens back up until the weather got hot enough to open the windows.

The time of warmer weather finally arrived, and Ed dutifully cleaned the screens and put them back up.

When I got home from work, I was just about to congratulate him on a job well done, when I noticed something....well, strange. There was white fluffy stuff attached to the screens at various places.

"What's that?" I asked, taken aback.

"It's cotton balls," Ed replied nonchalantly. "There were holes in the screens, so I plugged them up so the bugs can't get in."

I was appropriately aghast. "You're plugging screen holes with pieces of cotton balls?" I repeated, my mind just begging him to reassure me that I had misunderstood.

Oh, no, I did not misunderstand. There were the screens, and there were the pieces of white cotton balls. We had a house for sale, and there were pieces of cotton balls in our screens.

Surprisingly, this did not seem to bother Ed a bit. I pulled myself together and said, "Well, don't you think we need to get the screens replaced?"

Ed said, "Nah, they'll be fine."

"BUT THERE ARE PIECES OF COTTON BALLS IN THE SCREENS!" I couldn't help it. My incredulity gave way to massive irritation.

Ed tried to pacify me. "The bugs won't come in," he said. "We can also put CamphoPhenique on them, if you want to take extra precautions. Those bugs can't climb through that stuff."

I tried to breathe deeply, then lowered my voice. "I don't care about the bugs. Well, I do care about the bugs. But mostly I just care that THERE ARE PIECES OF COTTON BALLS IN THE SCREENS! Remove the screens this instant! We are taking them immediately to Sunrise Glass to get them replaced!"

It was at that point Ed looked sheepish. "I can't take them out," he said, eyes averted. "When I put them back, I got them mixed up and put them in the wrong windows. I got the left one stuck and now I can't get it out."

Well, that's just marvelous. How were we to explain this to prospective house buyers?
"And over here, we have beautiful bay windows...oh, look! It's snowing!"

Fortunately, Sunrise Glass sent someone over with window/screen experience, and he retrieved the screens effortlessly and took them in to be replaced. We picked them up in a couple of days, and Ed managed to insert them properly this time, thank goodness. I like swimming fishies, and I like soaring planets, but a cotton ball is not a screensaver I can live with!