fish sauce emergency concluded

about a month ago, i reported that a 24 oz bottle of fish sauce (of lesser quality) broke and soaked into my carpet. and i can now say that the cleanup is complete (or at least as complete as i am gonna attempt. maybe when i move out the landlord will completely replace the carpet - but that'll probably be due to the 101 dalmatian burn spots in the shape of a clothes iron that pockmark the carpet. which leads to another parenthetical: i have a bad habit of knocking over the iron when trying to iron my clothes - and the carpet is made of plastic, because it dissolves under the heat of the iron faster than nestle's quik.)

so you can call this "the easy 10-step guide on how to get fish sauce out of the carpet:"

first off, i made some mistakes. but i will start by giving a step-by-step of what i shoulda done:

1. feel sorry for yourself as you sop up what you can of the fish sauce and shards of glass

2. pull up the carpet

3. cut out the soiled padding underneath

4. buy replacement padding for the soiled area

5. rent a rug doctor or similar contraption

6. place plastic (maybe a large garbage bag) between the carpet and the floor underneath (this prevents the water from the rug cleaner from spreading the fish sauce further into the unsoiled areas of the carpet

7. go at the carpet from both sides (top and bottom) and be careful about how much soap you use

8. if you want, you can use some deodorizer on the carpet (a lot are out there - and i don't know which one's better)

9. replace the new padding underneath

10. return the carpet to its original place - which is hard cause you gotta pull the edges tight - and hope you can't smell the fish sauce

but like i said, i made some mistakes. i tried to clean the carpet first with lemon juice and baking soda, and then i went at the carpet with the rug doctor before putting the plastic underneath the carpet. so with all the water squirting out of the rug doctor, i inadvertently spread the fish sauce into a larger (a much larger) area of the carpet and padding underneath. so even though i cut out the soiled padding to replace it, the fish sauce had bled far beyond the original area. i figured out what i shoulda done after it was too late. and the baking soda idea? i don't recommend it. cause now - although you can't see the fish sauce stain on the carpet - the front room where the incident occurred still has this smell... and it's not just fish sauce, but fish sauce and baking soda. and i don't smell it all the time - just every so often it will hit me. and in some ways it's worse - cause i never know when to expect it. i'll just be doing whatever - watching tv, paying bills, ironing a shirt, and then it gets me - real-life ptsd going on here.

anyway, just remember to buy 3 crabs over squid. its the only thing to do.