This is 100% off topic. Sorry. But read it anyway. It will serve as a warning to you....here goes:

When someone in my house does something dumb there's a little song I sing. It's the chorus of that old Robert Palmer song, "Addicted to Love." Remember? The one that had the sexy, anonymous women in the black dresses and red lipstick behind Palmer as he sang? In the 80s? Anyone? Anyone?

Anyway, it goes like this: "The lights are on, but you're not home." Yes, I am mocking when I sing this, but it's meant only in the kindest possible way.

But listen, I can take it just as well as I can give it out! My husband and I have done something incredibly stupid and I'll share it with you, my readers, to serve as a warning never to do anything like this yourself.

My in-laws are coming to visit. They will be here Thursday evening. Naturally we want our house to look as nice as it possibly can, especially since we are in a new-to-us house that they've never seen before. Add to that the fact that my husband and I worked our rears off completely renovating this house and you can tell we're a bit house proud.

We painted all the rooms in our house before we moved in. The previous owner, a lovely woman, had painted the rooms in really funky colors. We are not scared of colors, but I'm talking really funky colors. Like a bubblegum pink kitchen. Or an orange sponge painted laundry room with green ivy stenciled on top. Or a peach master bed room with pink fleur-de-lis floating randomly about. All of this, mind you, on 1915 beadboard-paneled walls.

Yes. Imagine.

So my husband painted every single room, every single ceiling, and every single piece of moulding in the house (which were also painted to coordinate, or not, with the colors in the rooms), except for one room: the front hall. He didn't paint the front hall a)because we weren't sure what we wanted to do with it, and b) because it was a heck of a lot of work. The front hall contains the stairs to the second floor, which had been stenciled with a floral pattern to match the 4 other colors of trim, beadboard, ceiling, and wall color in the room.

Fast forward to last week. "I'd sure love to paint that hallway before your parents get here," I says.

"I'll do it!" says the lovely husband. He paints the moulding and trim white. he paints the baseboard white. He carefully tapes the wooden banister and the stairs and paints the stairs a beautiful shade of dark red that I saw in one of those home magazines. It looks gorgeous.

Problem #1: we used oil paint.
Problem #2: we did it last night so it would dry while the kids were in bed on the second floor
Problem #3: It didn't dry.

The lights were on in our house, folks, but we were not home!

Luckily, we only did the top half of the stairs. Husband was able to climb over the banisters to retrieve the children, who were passed down to me, on the stairs that were not painted.

Problem #4: he did the rest of the painting this morning...and it's still not dry.

Problem #5: Parents-in-law are coming tomorrow. Upstairs huge mess. Upstairs needs vacuuming, sheets changed, bathroom cleaned....

What if it doesn't dry by tomorrow?