ADVENTURES IN HOUSEKEEPING

Ladies (and gents) who clean your own houses, what is your grossest house cleaning chore? Cleaning the toilet? I say nay, because there are things called toilet brushes that prevent your dainty hands from ever having to touch anything, and that magic blue goo that helps to loosen all the unmentionable grime from the bowl. My worst nightmare is cleaning the shower. More specifically, pulling the hair out of the shower drain, with all the unidentifiable black gunk attached thereto. Knowing that it is my own hair does not help. I know it is mine because there are only two of us who use the shower, and it ain't coming from Mount Baldy. I tackled that chore today because it was time. I knew it was time, because even with my extreme nearsightedness, I could see the hair accumulating in the drain when I showered. I knew it was time because it had been a long, long time since I had tackled the chore. How long? I'm ashamed to admit it was I-can't-remember-when long. I have not always cleaned my own home. When I was working full time, I used a cleaning service. They did an okay job, but the most important thing was that it was not me who had to do it. I'm sure my mother would have disapproved, because she was of sturdy German farmer stock, and disdained any woman who would not roll up her sleeves and do it herself. After all, she reasoned, nobody would do a better job than you yourself. In my case that is debatable, yet nonetheless, when I retired, I decided that I needed the exercise and I did not need to be spending the money, so I took over the job. I do the jobs that need it the most: kitchen, toilets, bathroom sinks, floors. I often neglect the job of dusting, because eh, whatever. And cleaning out the shower is the last on my list, not because it does not need it, but because I cannot stand it. My mother, great housekeeper that she was, never shared her secrets with me. I say that, but it is possible that she did, and I was not paying attention. In fact, that is more likely. At any rate, whatever I know about housekeeping I know from trial and error. For example, do not use toilet cleaner on a cast iron skillet. Oh, don’t be so shocked. It was a simple mistake. First off, for you Southerners and country folk to whom the cast iron skillet is a shibboleth as sacred as NASCAR, not everybody grew up cooking on cast iron skillets, so get over it. When my grandmother moved to the old folks’ home, I inherited her well-seasoned skillet. But stuff still stuck to it. It just did. And the only way I knew how to scrub a pan was with Comet cleanser. So where does the toilet cleaner come in? For those of us over 50, we may recall Sani Flush, a marvelous cleaning product containing sparkling blue crystals packaged in a cylindrical container. When sprinkled into the toilet bowl, Sani Flush would bubble and hiss merrily as it set about its cleaning chore. Comet also came in a cylindrical container. I reached into the broom closet for the Comet, pulled out the Sani Flush, and poured a heaping helping of it into the skillet. Suddenly, a chemical reaction began. I swear I saw blue smoke rising from the pan, as fumes filled the air, and the crystals began to create pockmarks on the pan's surface. I rushed out of the back door and dumped the pan in the trash can, never to be seen again. Perhaps that last bit was an overreaction, but it seemed to make sense at the time. I cleaned my shower this morning and can feel virtuous for the rest of the day. Amen.