Thanks a Lot, Walt!

I went in search this week for a new, modern bathroom cleaning product. Criteria: pleasant fragrance; sanitizing. Preferably: spray-on; no scrubbing, no wiping, no rinsing. These things exist! And it’s only recently that I’ve found out about them! In fact, it seems that there are products out there that do all the cleaning for you. I’ve been living in a barn apparently because I have been cleaning porcelain surfaces with Comet Cleanser for the last 40 years. That grit is a total nuisance to rinse! Why has no one told me about these new-fangled cleaners sooner?

It seems that the least amount of effort possible is the zeitgeist for domestic chores in the 21^st century. And why not? It took the entire 20^th century to get to this point. Manufacturers have been working on this goal since the invention of vacuum cleaners in the late 1800s which ultimately led to the liberation of housekeepers from the tyranny of dirt. Hallelujah for those guys! As a household product, vacuums have advanced a lot, but I kicked…er, accidentally dropped my most recent canister vacuum down the basement stairs for being a good-for-nothing piece of poo. (“Oops! Aw, it’s broken.”) Now there is a robot floor cleaner that will scour your floors and you don’t even have to be in the house at the same time! I’m going to want one of those bad boys for Christmas!

I hate cleaning. There isn’t much that can compel me to fill a bucket with hot soapy water, lug it up the basement stairs and wash something. But one day last week I tried spritzing Windex on the grime hiding in the corners on the verandah. It was inadequate to the task. So, clearly, the bucket was the only solution. I plodded down to the basement, heavy of heart. I knocked a couple of spiders out of a pail hiding under the laundry sink. They had obviously been there awhile. As I filled the bucket with hot water and some Simple Green industrial-strength cleaner, a melody started to ramble in my head. What is that? I filled a second bucket. The melody persisted.

I started for the stairs. Lugging the two slopping containers and grabbing my mop as I went, the tune overtook my brain. Suddenly, I knew what it was. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice! You know! Da-dum! Da-da-da-dum-da-dum-dum-dum-dum! That totally terrifying scene from Disney’s Fantasia starring Mickey Mouse whose master goes for a nap telling Mickey to clean the lab while he’s gone. Mickey tries out a spell that he casts on a mop to help him do his work. It grows arms and legs and picks up a bucket! Everything is going fine, until the spell slips! The mop starts to split into hundreds of mops, swiftly becoming awash in floods of water and soap; SO much water and soap. Poor Mickey with his little bucket can hardly bail it fast enough. Upstairs and downstairs. Water everywhere! Mops carrying slopping pails of water, everywhere! Oh, it’s scary. I first saw it when I was about six. Scared me to bits. When the sorcerer returns to his flooded lab and sweeps his arms to end the spell, glaring at his hapless apprentice for the havoc he has wreaked, I screamed, “Run, Mickey! Run!”

No wonder I balk at housekeeping! It’s a childhood trauma relived, over and over again. I don’t just hate cleaning. I’m terrified of it! Da-dum! Da-da-da-dum-da-dum-dum-dum-dum!  Agh!

The very next day I bought a big ass spray bottle of no-rinse, super-foaming, no scum-residue cleaning stuff that smells like spring rain. No mop. NO Bucket!!!

p.s. My blog will be back in two weeks - taking a break for Spring Cleaning. Kidding!