Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles

My daughter, who is reading Anne of Green Gables, refuses to read the last chapter because she knows "something sad is going to happen." I, on the other hand, don't stop reading, but read faster, when I know there will be tears. Thus, I sped through the ending (middle and beginning) of Care of Wooden Floors because it's not only sad, it's catastrophic. 

A somewhat sloppy English writer has come to care for an old friend's flat in Eastern Europe. Oskar, the owner of the flat is a composer. He leaves the flat, two cats, and a pristine expanse of polished wooden floors to the writer's care while tiding up a divorce in California. How hard can it be, the writer thinks, to leave the flat just as he finds it? 

Oskar seems to have anticipated this very question and has left detailed notes near the cleaning supplies, under the bed, in the kitchen drawers, on the bookshelf, and under the piano lid. 

After a fitful night, the writer wakes to find his wine glass from the night before. To his horror, drops of (red) wine have made their way down to the floor; the stain has set. And events (disastrous, astonishing, uncomfortable, but nonetheless, hysterically funny) are set in motion. 

I will never look at a glass of red wine in the same way - especially if it's near a wooden floor. Or a cat.