It all started innocently enough; now, we have a new floor

Ahab had his Great White Whale, Gollum had his Precious, and now I have my Gunstock Oak Engineered Hardwood flooring.

It all started innocently enough. I was indulging in an evening of Home and Garden TV's Design Time Saturday Night. Alone, and with my defenses down, I was infected with the urge to redecorate.

All I wanted was new beds for the boys, but there was no point in putting in new beds on top of their carpet, which had started to look more than a little like the LaBrea tar pits. There were perfect crop circles of glue embedded in the pile. There was a spilled bottle of green food coloring. There's still a chance we'll find Jimmy Hoffa.

So if we're changing the flooring in the boys' room, we really should just go ahead and change the flooring in the whole... well... There's no point in going further. You know exactly how this line of reasoning goes, because you've probably stood in a big-box home improvement store after way too much coffee and way too many episodes of Design On A Dime and had the exact same conversation:

"Why put down new carpet that will just become home to another bottle of food coloring and another missing union boss? Why, that would be insane! Let's put down that snap-together stuff that cleans up so easily! Why, the kids could slaughter a pig on that stuff and it wouldn't leave a mess! Let's not give them any ideas! But still! We'll do the whole second floor! And the stairs, too, even though sticking hot needles into our eyes would be so much easier and cheaper! And if we're pulling up the carpet, we may as well paint the whole thing, too!"

And if anyone mentions paying someone to install it for you, just laugh into your Venti and chuckle about how Lee Snijders did it in one afternoon. While he was chatting with the cameraman. While he was knitting a new rug.

So, it must be really, really easy.

Twenty-five hours later, with exactly five rows of Gunstock Oak Engineered Hardwood on the floor and more glue in my hair than on the subfloor, I know these things:

- HGTV needs to come with a warning label and be controlled by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

- Home Depot should just give up and offer marriage counseling right at the front door. And Valium. Lots and lots of Valium.

- There was a 15-minute period where I was really proud of the fact that I could bandy about words like "subfloor" and "underlayment" and not have to pretend that I knew what I was talking about.

- If I ever hear those words again, I'll show you some new, creative uses for that table saw.

- Given the amount of glue involved, naming the dog "Elmer" turned out to be weirdly prophetic.

- When I walked into Lowe's for the fifth time last Saturday, they all yelled, "NORM!"

- Sadly, they did not offer me a beer.

The most important thing I've learned, though, was this: The only thing crazier than showing a menopausal woman how to use a nail gun would be giving her a harpoon.

Ahwatukee Foothills resident Elizabeth Evans can be reached at elizabethann40@hotmail.com. Her column appears monthly.