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Like rings of a tree tell its age, the appearance of a spill on laminate or carpet give clues to its lifespan.

Still moist? Less than a half-day old.

Tacky? Somewhat less than a day.

Dark in appearance and dry to the touch? Up to two days old.

A dark ring and light-colored in the center? Approaching fossilization.

Mike Rowe is negotiating a spot with me to appear on Dirty Jobs. The topic? Spillology.

My knowledge-journey began when our youngest poured a glass of grape juice and proceeded downstairs to the family room. There was more purple-stained carpet between the kitchen and his destination than beige. Now that he's 12, he can juggle a drink with his feet, a bag of Cheetos in the one hand and his laptop in the other; visitors gawk in awe when they step into our foyer and witness the aftermath.

His 16-year-old sibling is a hunter and trapper and, in the art of carpet-staining, is not to be outdone. After checking numerous traps over 20 miles of creek bed, he heads back to town wearing boot soles like the underside of his truck - covered with a half-inch of mud; to his credit, he occasionally - when I am watching - takes them off before entering the house, maybe.

Nonetheless, the efficient lad chooses to put them on in his room the next morning, donning them from his room to the kitchen to the living room and out the front door again. I've never actually seen this happen; like the young hunter himself, I've acquired the ability to track based on the hardened mud-prints of this male mammal's camouflaged boots.

I once asked the trapper to clean the mud off of his boots prior to wearing them in the house; he used a towel from the downstairs' bathroom to erase the top layer of the encrusted mess. The white hand towel is now a tie-dyed light and dark brown perma-design after six, bleach-filled washings; I live under the illusion that it is not lingering raccoon poop.

Just this morning, the same woman who bought new white bathroom towels, left her coffee on top of the laundry hamper. At lunch, evidence of coffee spillage - most certainly less than a half-day old - pooled on the open-air slats, dripping on a new and formerly lily-white towel. She claims I am the culprit; furthermore, she is wrong - her children did not get this behavior from anyone strange.

My bride hasn't asked for new carpet since we brought our families together in 2011. But it only makes sense that she's given up on that wish. After all, why would she want to replace the evidence daftly displaying our family's talent, up to and including how long that partially eaten slice of pizza has resided under the sofa?

For my sanity if nothing else, I have decided to embrace this mild imperfection of family life. After all, our situation exposes all I have to be grateful for in my life: a Labradoodle who has a nose for three-day-old pizza and my newly acquired tracking skills.

- Doug Clough

Doug Clough writes a column for the Ida County Courier in Ida Grove, Iowa, called "From our backyard…" His work has appeared in Farm News, The Iowan and Boating World, and he served as a travel scout for Midwest Living. "I am a father of a salad bowl family (aka 'blended'), a customer service manager, the possession of my Labradoodle and - in a former life - an English teacher. Someone has to enjoy that mix; it may as well be me," he says.