You can hate carpeting for only so many years. After that, it becomes a dangerous assault against your physical and mental health. It took me 17 years for the disease to become a raging Level IV diagnosis.

When I first moved into the house, my reaction to the carpeting was in the early stages of discomfort. I could easily ignore it because, after all, it was on the second floor.

So it was a low-priority illness and in denial, I could pretend that Fatal Carpeting didn’t exist. There were young children and pets present, anyway, so I could justify not addressing the illness for some years. I just tried not to look, hoping that in the future there would be a cure for what ailed me.

I shuddered quietly in those years as I passed over it from day to day. Some stomach disorder was experienced as I noticed the designer colors. There was “Bile Green” in one bedroom and “Nausea Yellow” in the hallway and bathroom, both indoor-outdoor carpeting in its full plush.

But there were other horrifying offenses to my mental health meantime that had to be treated first. Like the “Halloween Orange” carpet on the first floor covering oak floors. It was surgically removed along with the “Mashed Pumpkin” draperies. For awhile, the color of newsprint in the dining room provided temporary relief medication.

Other decorating diseases had to be treated, as well. The third bedroom had been painted “Migraine Pink,” with layers underneath including “Mustard Yellow,” “Embalmed White” and “Weed Green.”

For symptoms of “Painting Hardwood” illness, the treatment was more life-threatening than the disease itself. But I survived the effects of paint-stripping chemical fairly unscathed.

But Fatal Carpeting was still festering and rapidly becoming a major illness. I became a babbling idiot when friends visited. If anyone wanted to use the bathroom upstairs, I would fly into a nervous vibration trying to block the stairway.

“Please, don’t look down when you go to the second floor,” I would beg. I was also mortified to have a guest stay in the “Bile Green” bedroom.

But I still had not enough Fatal Carpeting benefits to treat the disease. So I would have to wait and hope for a magic cure. Meantime, there were other illnesses to treat. Appliance Meltdown required immediate attention as well as a major blood transfusion of the main water line. The water heater required minor surgery.

My Fatal Carpeting was in remission for a time, but short lived. Finally, one day a massive stroke took me by storm. I could not ignore the symptoms any longer.

The day began normal enough as I decided to switch bed frames in order to accommodate the location of a reading light. I set about to dismantle the furniture in two bedrooms. I didn’t notice the hyperventilating signs at first, but found myself suddenly nauseated. It was a desperate situation as I ran for ripping tools to destroy the old carpet. In this dire emergency, I couldn’t work fast enough to alleviate my disease. Timing was key. I had to race to the carpet store with a measuring tape.

The emergency carpet store people were concerned about my vital signs at first, but as soon as I said “Quick, where do I sign?” they were relived to be there for me to recover from “Fatal Carpeting.”