Report From the Domestic Goddess Front

Or how I accidentally mopped my bathroom floor...

It’s probably a good thing that there is no MacArthur Fellowship for Housekeeping, because I definitely would not win one. Not that I’ve gotten the one for Panda Satire or a Nobel prize for smarty pants tweets, either.

So I had kind of mentally rough drafted a post on Groundhog Day for today (is that an actual writing thing?) but then, since it was the 1st of February, I thought maybe I should clean my washing machine.

A few years ago, when my 20 year old washing machine went to the appliance barn in the sky, I had to go shopping not for just a new washer, but a washer AND dryer since they were stacked (bolted together). Who knew (definitely not me) that when you have the washer and dryer paired like that, if one goes, they are both kaput.

So…

Who knew (also not me) how much more washers and driers had gotten in the 20 years since I had bought my original ones? A pair 20 years ago cost what one half of the set costs now.

I decided to go for one of those European models that are both washer AND drier in one little machine. They are pretty cool, although not for people who run many loads of laundry in one week, because not only do the cycles take longer because they use far less water, but you can’t have one load in the washer while another is in the drier, because it is the same thing.

Anyway…

You’re supposed to run a cleaning cycle once a month, where you dump some bleach in the empty washer, and it has a special cycle just for this, and then your washer is all nice and clean and fresh, ready to spend 3 hours washing your sheets again!

One of the nice things about working from home is that I can put in a load of laundry then go back to what ever I was doing. So I measured out a cup of “bleach”, set the cycle going and went back to my studio.

When I came downstairs, I was surprised to see that my washer was not all clean and shiny, ready for it’s next task, but it was full of suds.

oops…

Apparently, I grabbed the wrong plastic jug of laundry stuff and instead of putting beach in, put the equivalent of soap for 10 or more loads of laundry.

Crap
Crap
Crap…

So, I thought to myself…no problem….I’ll just run the cycle again, and it will wash all the suds out. so I started up the cycle again, but 5 minutes later I thought…no…I should stop the washer, scoop a bunch of the suds out, then run the rinse and spin cycle, which is much faster.

So I stopped the washer and turned off the power switch so the door would unlock (did I mention this was a front loading machine?), opened the door and…

A flood of soapy water cascaded out onto my (most definitely not pristine) bathroom floor.

crap…

Crap
Crap
Crap!!!!!

So I’m moving things out of the way…trash cans and laundry baskets and the under sink sliding bin that I can’t remember the last time I cleaned under and start mopping up water with a towel and the mat from in front of the sink…

I finally got all the suds and water cleaned up from the floor, and my floor hasn’t been this clean in a while, so I guess it’s not a total disaster.

There were still a bunch of suds in the washer, which I managed to clear out in a couple of rinse and spin cycles.

I’m pretty sure I’m not getting senile yet.

I keep a lot of stuff in my head most of the time, so it’s easy to see how I got distracted and put the wrong thing in the washer. I should also be grateful that these machines don’t use much water so the flooding was minimal and didn’t even cover the whole room. (which means there is a bit more floor cleaning to do since there is a visible difference) And the floor really DID need to get mopped.

So I leave you with this little ‘toon about art and tsunamis and pandas:

I hope your week is going better than mine is today.