Slippery Adventures in Baileysland

Originally posted to Livejournal on April 3, 2007.

It's been a little while since I posted. It's been nuts around our place.
Here is just a little glimpse of the fun we have around our house:


Last night, Brian went to the laundry room to get a load of clothes out of the dryer. Unfortunately, if you don't shut our door to the laundry room just right, it takes Merle about 10 seconds pop the door and get out to the laundry room and gorge himself on the cheap outside cat food. Aka, junk food. It's like potato chips and candy to a four year old. So, Merle and Tiny broke into the laundry room and commenced wrecking havoc. Very quietly. So, we didn't really act until we heard The Crash. Brian went to investigate and returned with a crucial question:
"How do you clean soap?"
"HUH?"
"How do you clean up detergent?"
I said "HOW MUCH!?"
"....a bit..."

I ran off to the laundry room to see what the heck he was talking about. The next four or five hundred words out of my mouth mostly aren't fit for public reading.

See, here's the back-story: last Monday, I spent like $25 at Costco on a big honkin' thing of laundry detergent. The kind with the tap. A for-real TAP.

As I came through the laundry room door, I saw....detergent. I'd like to say 'a tide of Tide', but it was Free and Clear, not Tide. But it was TWO INCHES DEEP on my laundry room floor. Apparently Merle and/or Tiny had knocked this Keg 'o Suds on the floor and it landed on it's little vent-top thingy. Which shattered, and so commenced the wave of gooey, viscous, soapy liquid. It covered the floor, a lawn chair, several garden implements, my floor steamer, and various other laundry room debris.

The next words out of my mouth will let you know how my priorities have changed since we put the contract on the house:
"That cost like $30!!"
To which Brian replied, "It's still about half-full." My optimistic man.

At this point we stopped and thought through our options. I know one of us then pointed out the fact that you simply can't put water on that. Nooo kidding. Now we know for sure that it takes 45 minutes, 1 entire roll of paper towels (also purchased at Costco and so cheap, thank God), 1 dumpster, and a whole trashcan to clean up a detergent spill. Or rather, to clean it enough so that you can slip-slide your way into bed around 2:15 with a firm battle plan for tomorrow. Which involved Brian, a mop, and a bucket of vinegar and water. Which worked FANTASTIC. Little tip from your Aunt Andi: vinegar cleans everything. Even detergent. That floor looks great, thanks to Brian.

We totally consider this training for kids -- as in, we've conquered detergent, I'm good to go with kid-poop, and maybe we can work up to vomit. Maybe. You wouldn't think detergent is nasty...but it's foul when it's in a huge puddle on your already not-so-well-swept floor.
Laugh it up. We eventually did :)