Need a picture or much more detail/description. In many cases there is nothing wrong with "shiny and slightly wrinkled leaves". Dave

Thanks lazygardens and thanks again lucy-bcs-texas. You guys have been a great asset, especially since you took the time to read what I wrote and gave me the info that applied to what I actually need to do, as opposed to a "gut the room and replace everything" type of answer. I like lazygardens' thought, "It's just surgery!"... said the surgeon to the first year med student... I'm a bit squeamish about these things... where's my barf bag?!. :^) But cutting along the black line and then pulling up the carpet to see how much I need to cut out makes perfect sense... I couldn't see the forest for the trees, or the carpet for the floor, as it were. I'll let you know how it goes in a few days and maybe I'll even include a new picture of the wound once it's been operated on, before I put down the area rug. Thanks again, Zerk

Sorry to get off topic but... Yikes, all this criticism against kswl2 for being boorish, rude, thoughtless, and brutal in the first post for giving what was clearly stated (a couple of times) as just their opinion. Is everyone really so fragile? This type of response is exactly what I would want to hear, someone pointing out potential issues and problems that I haven't even thought about. I welcome them and I don't need to be tiptoed around so as to avoid hurting my feelings.

I've actually had a similar idea to yours cynic, but with a slight change that might actually make the solution workable. Whenever a call is received, the recipient has the option of hanging up and dialing similar to *69 (I'll call it *96) which would cause some amount (say 50 cents) to be added to the callers bill, and that amount would be credited to the recipient's bill. Think about it. You've just got a call from 'Bridget at card services" or from "Microsoft" or from some annoying survey or from the opposing political party regarding their reprehensible candidate, and rather than merely hanging up and walking away silently fuming (like I did moments ago in the middle of writing this message) Instead imagine hanging up, dialing *96 and walking away slightly smirking because you've actually affected the annoying caller, and your phone bill will be slightly smaller this month. Imagine the smile when you think, "Five more of them, and this month is free!" The details of the plan would need some careful thought to avoid creating a new mode of abuse wherein some scammer calls you leaving a message saying "Its an emergency, call me back at this number ASAP" and then when you do, they *96 you and garner 50 cents from you. Maybe each caller gets a handful of *96 calls in a given month before they are debited. Or perhaps the caller is notified that the recipient has done a *96, and the caller has the option of dialing *97 and negating the charge back, but only a couple of times a month. It would take decision at the Federal level to force the phone companies to implement this, since I'm sure they'll fight it tooth and nail. Furthermore the telemarketing industry will surely claim it would affect their business, and jobs of all the poor schlubs they employ, but ... duh, that's the entire point of the measure. The one issue I see with the measure is that it would be so effective, that perhaps within a year of being implemented, the need for it and the use of it would drop to near zero. (Note if a lawmaker reads this and wants to implement this scheme, I'll gladly license the design for a meager 1/100th of a cent per call that is *96'ed :-)