2004-09-24 - 10:35 a.m.

Household Tips

This morning after a jar of baby food crashed and burned onto the tile followed by a litany of profanities, I was left with a big fat sticky mess to clean up. I managed to pick up all of the visible shards of glass without getting cut � amazing. I wiped up the heap of bland applesauce and then went to go get my new Swiffer Wet Jet Turbo Dual Exhaust High Performance device. I had never used it before and was kind of anxious to take it for a test drive, so to speak. It was interesting to note that the attachable cleaning pads that come with it bore a strong resemblance to a giant maxi pad. I knew I had seen that same patented super absorbent lock-away core system SOMEWHERE before. To protect my floor from odor and wetness, I presume. They even had the "wings" to protect against leaks. Only the handy diagram on the outside of the box labels them as "cleaning cuffs". At any rate, it was good to know that if I were to run out of either product that the two are interchangeable.

I applied the cleaning pad to the Swiffer and fired 'er up. So far so good! It advertised on the box that it has a push-button activator to prevent trigger-finger fatigue. Which is exactly what I needed after firing off my 9 all morning. Every time I pressed the push-button activator it would make a little motorized "bzzzzzzzt" sound, which Gavin thought was HILARIOUS. Added plus!! I can entertain the baby AND get some housework done! I carefully swiffered each and every tile, paying special attention to the ones that fell victim to the avalanche of applesauce. Upon drying I assessed the kitchen floor with my bare feet. Prognosis: negative. Every time I lifted my foot it sounded like a big piece of packing tape being removed from something. Being my optimistic self I thought, "Maybe it�s just the bottoms of my feet," and proceeded to wash them off under the bathtub faucet. Another stroll through the kitchen with my clipboard and my white lab coat on� "� seems to be a little less sticky � however there is still 'stick'. Diagnosis: sticky." What the hell were the ingredients of the Advanced Cleaning Solution ... honey and syrup listed in small print at the very bottom...?? Maybe I didn't get all the applesauce up and just ended up smearing it around the whole kitchen. I don't know. but what I did know was that my floor was a big gummy MESS. I decided that I was just being too particular and left it as it was. If I told myself that it wasn't REALLY all that sticky, maybe it would go away. A few hours later, my husband arrived home and strode through the kitchen in his work boots. Granted, there were probably a few layers of dust on the soles of his boots, but under normal circumstances they would not have peeled completely off and stuck to the tile in the perfect likeness of shoe tread. My floor now looked like an exaggerated "before" picture in a cleaning product ad and read, "dnalrebmiT, dnalrebmiT, dnalrebmiT, dnalrebmiT, dnalrebmiT" everywhere. So I did what any self-respecting, sticky-footed, pissed off housewife with a raging case of PMS would do. I splashed half a bottle of Mr. Clean all over the kitchen floor followed by about 9 full cups of steaming hot water. By 'cup' I do not mean a little meager measuring cup 'cup' � but a Super America BIG GULP 'cup'. I sloshed around in the liquids � mixed it all together, taking special care not to slip and fall because that would have REALLLLY pissed me off. And I didn't want the headlines of the morning paper to read, "WOMAN DROWNS IN KITCHEN AFTER RAGING PMS INCIDENT". It's a good thing that we do not have a basement because we would have had some major ceiling drippage down in it. A couple of 20 lb. wet beach towels later, I had the cleanest floor in this part of Kentucky. Now I have to go figure out how to get the Desitin diaper rash ointement out of the living room carpet. Pass the bleach, scissors, matches and shop vac and look for my book PMS Household Tips in your neighborhood book store. It's all the RAGE!

the past - the future

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