The Great Green Crayon Mystery

>> Friday, April 9, 2010

I want to share with you a mystery that has been going on around our house.  We call it the Great Green Crayon Mystery.  In a nutshell, mysterious green crayon marks have been appearing on our walls in our entranceway and our upstairs hallway, and now, most recently, on the ceiling of the bathroom.

I know.  I know.  I can hear you from here.  You think Toddler did it.

Well, unless Toddler was crayoning around the house since before he was even conceived, and unless he has found a way to reach the ceiling of the bathroom ... you are wrong. 

Now, don't misunderstand.  Toddler has done his fair share of inappropriate crayoning when my back was turned.  He has gotten the floor, and old baby bed circa 1970s that was in the hallway or disposal.  (Don't report me to social services.  We didn't use it.  The last baby that used it was me.  If you want to know why I still had it at all, see this post.) 

The best we can figure, the green, crayon-like markings began appearing on our white walls some time after we hired our housekeeper, who no longer works here. I guarantee you she was not walking around this house with a green crayon in her hand. In fact, we think they are still appearing even now, although we might just be on the lookout for them. (Hard to tell.) The marks started in the entraceway, in the stairs going up to the bedrooms. Something she was carrying could easily have bumped the walls, and this is our very best theory, given that the marks appear in hallways and stairwells, but not in wide open rooms. Exactly "what" she might have been carrying is beyond our comprehension.

Even better, we have never successfully removed any of the markings, unlike the red crayon in the kitchen. In the process of our investigation, we learned that metal frames leave graphite-like marks and the vacuum cleaner leaves dents if you brush it against the wall. We now know what fingerprint, and newsprint (and fingerprints from newsprint) look like on walls, as well as what can happen when a big framed oil painting and a white wall meet forcibly. We can describe what cat pee on walls looks like, as well as baby vomit, milk, puree, and a host of other food and food products.

At no time, though, have we ever discovered what leaves a mark like green crayon. Any suggestions or should I just blame this one on Entropy and Chaos, too? To help you decide (and in blatant copying of my fellow blogger John Cave Osborne author of And Triplets Make Six), I've included a video, below.

4 comments:

Dazee Dreamer April 9, 2010 at 9:54 AM  

Time to call in Ghost Hunters. :)

Anonymous April 10, 2010 at 1:35 PM  

Lovie woulda had that solved in 2.2 seconds.

she woulda blamed me! (thanks for the props!)

Anonymous April 10, 2010 at 5:42 PM  

Hi, I'm a regular reader, but first time commenter.

Is it some sort of mold / fungus ? Perhaps all the dampness from all the storms has finally led it to come out of dormancy ?

That's lame, but to my mold-o-phobic brain, probably the only thing I can think of.

Priya.

Karin Kysilka April 12, 2010 at 10:53 AM  

Oh, now these are all good solutions. I wonder if Ghost Hunters would believe me.

John, do you think it would work if I just blamed you, too?

Priya, thanks so much for commenting! It's nice to know I'm not really writing to the same 3 people every day. I hear ya on the mold. I've fought the mold battle more than once over the years. This time, I am pleased to admit ... the marks started during the drought. (Whew!)

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