Delta woke up the next morning feeling more refreshed than she had in years. For once, the bed wasn't musky and she wasn't hungover.
She glanced over at her alarm clock, seeing that all of her work last night had made her get a full night's sleep, and it was 8 AM. Rolling herself out of bed, she went over to the closet and pulled out her clean tank top, or well, as clean as it was going to get. Stepping out into the kitchen, she took the last of the coffee grounds in the cabinet and began brewing a fresh pot, before pouring the last bowl of Boop-O-Roops. It was becoming clear that in addition to whatever work she wanted to get done around the lot today, a trip to the grocery store was in order.
As she sipped at her coffee and ate her cereal, she took a look around, and figured the next logical step would be to get these carpets clean. But no ordinary vacuum cleaner was likely to make a dent in the years of hoof traffic and spilled food and drinks these floors had seen. No, her best bet would be to use some of her bits from yesterday and get them shampooed. She was pretty sure that the food mart she frequented offered carpet cleaning rentals, but she had never paid them any mind.
In addition to that, she would have to put together a short grocery list. Apogee needed more than Boop-O-Roops and ordering out for pizza every other time. Delta never considered herself much of a cook, but she could certainly do some basic dishes that required more than a microwave, and could still impress a 16-year old's tongue, surely.
Once she had finished her breakfast, she started the good habit of taking the dishes to the sink and giving them a drop of soap, a quick washing, rinsing, then set them on the drying rack so they'd be ready to put away by the time she got home. With that, she strapped on her small pair of saddlebags, dropped her bag of bits inside, and went outside to grab a shopping cart that she kept around the lot, and headed off.
As she stood in the one of the two dozen aisles of the Las Pegasus Feed 'n' Seed, she began to realize how long it had been since she did a meaningful grocery run. Most trips, it was just cereal, milk, cigarettes, and beer. But without those last two, she had a little bit more bits to play with, so she was currently among the fresh vegetables, wondering what Apogee might like on a homemade pizza. Without pineapple, the possibilities were nearly limitless.
She already had two boxes of Boop-O-Roops, a can of coffee grounds, a pizza crust, a carton of milk, pancake batter, a tub of ice cream, and two jugs of carpet cleaning solution. She knew she was going to need both, and hopefully not more than that, but the machine rental was free with two jugs if she returned it within 48 hours. For pizza ingredients, she decided on a cheap can of generic pizza sauce, a single tomato, green pepper, and a block of mozzarella cheese.
As she approached the registers, she was about to ask the cashier for a pack of her preferred brand of cigarettes, but on the racks next to the conveyor belt, she saw a slightly cheaper option; nicotine gum. She dropped it on the belt along with her other items, and informed the cashier of her rental. She paid the total,got everything put in the cart she had brought from the junkyard, and was on her way. It was about a mile back to her lot, and the late morning weather was unexpectedly pleasant. It would undoubtedly heat up once noon rolled around.
She passed a strip mall halfway home, and a 50% off advertisement caught her eye as she passed. She didn't have time to stop now; she had to get these groceries put away. Coming back would put her a little behind on starting the carpets, but she had just enough bits left to make this one final purchase. But would it be ready in time for Apogee's next visit?
Before she could start to deep-clean the carpets, they needed to be vacuumed, and no regular vacuum filter would be able to endure the accumulated dirt and cigarette butts. No, this called for the wet-dry vac she had out in the shop. Hopefully it still worked. She went out to the shop, quickly wiped it down, and dragged it into the trailer, and plugged it in. When the motor started up, she went from corner to corner, getting whatever the broom and dustpan missed, and whatever else would get in the way of the deep cleaner.
In order to understand how to work the carpet cleaner, she had to sit down, pop a piece of nicotine gum in her mouth, and read the pamphlet that came with the machine twice. Once she had somewhat of an idea how to get started, she filled the reservoir with hot water, added the cleaning solution, plugged the machine in, and started in the kitchenette area.
It was a much, much slower process than regular vacuuming, or at least it would to a pony who vacuumed regularly. She was simply astonished when it she hadn't even covered a quarter of the kitchen, and the reservoir might as well have come out of a sewer with how brown and black it was. Keeping her stomach in check, Delta she detached the reservoir and took it to the sink to dump out, rinsed it out, and once again filled it with hot water, and resumed the deep clean. This was a process she repeated five times, and she hadn't even gotten to the hall yet. But as she made a second pass of the kitchen, the water took longer and longer to become filthy. After all, if the reservoir was getting dirty, that meant it was coming out of the floors, and that was progress.
After getting halfway down the hall, she glanced outside, and saw that the sun was already down. Her unexpected extra errand had cost her more time than she thought. But she still had another day before the cleaner had to go back, and she was already halfway done. She emptied out the dirty water one last time, and left the deep cleaner plugged in in the hallway. After a quick shower, she sat down at the dining table to a small bowl of ice cream as she looked around and admired another hard day's work. The brown carpet didn't look that much cleaner, but it didn't feel as dirty when she walked on it, and it certainly smelled a bit better in here now.
With a yawn, she got up and rinsed the small bowl and spoon before putting them on the drying rack, and retired to her bedroom, where she was looking forward to the clean sheets more than ever. She could also tell the difference of walking on the deep cleaned carpets of the kitchen as she passed to the hallway and bedroom carpet. As she climbed into bed, she noticed how bare her nightstand looked without all the bottles. Opening the drawer to momentarily look at the picture of her and her parents, she remembered how she didn't have any photos of Apogee she could put next to her lamp. Honestly, that was probably for the best. Everything from twelve years ago with her in them also had Jet in them, and that's not a face she wanted next to her bed. As she closed the drawer, she made a mental note that perhaps that was another thing that needed to change.
Tomorrow was the halfway point, before her daughter would come knocking again...