Turning the Air Blue

As the saying goes, "hindsight is 20/20".

We all have bad habits and we all know that sometimes there are consequences to those said bad habits.  Consequences that we may not see normally but they are still there-a possibility and yet, not a deterrent.

My front loading washing machine is one of the highest rated machines in Consumer Reports and is relatively new.  I was so proud of my meticulous research and prowess at negotiating a good deal on our machine. Less than two years old, it is relatively new considering the lifetime of major appliances. It is not even near middle age.  Yet, it becomes possessed fairly regularly.  Possessed, as in, shaking wildly, making load noises, and migrating across the floor.  It appears that this happens when the load is not balanced-which happens when I cram to much laundry into the machine.

Saturday night, while my daughters peacefully slept and my husband was enjoying time out with The Boys (his friends), I was home doing laundry.  While I was on the computer checking email, I heard the washing machine start having a fit but it stopped within about 3 seconds.  Then it started again.  There was a thud.  My mind registered that that was a very, very, very bad thing.  The only thing on top of the machine was a wicker basket of laundry (which would NOT have accounted for that loud of a thud) and a 1.17 gallon of Tide. 

I raced to the laundry room already preparing myself for the worst case scenario.  Yet, I didn't really think that I would find THE ENTIRE BOTTLE empty on the floor.  It appeared that when it fell, the cap broke into pieces and the entire bottle spilled onto the floor.  It only took seconds.

This is where the air started to turn blue with words that I did not utter but I thought them-loudly.  My anger quickly turned to frustration after attempting to clean up the lake of blue goo that had spread out and under both the washing machine and dryer and to almost all corners of the room.  Bath towels did not absorb the liquid very effectively nor did paper towels. 

After a half hour my husband called to tell me he was heading home. Nearly in tears, I told him my sad tale.  He laughed...and laughed...and then said, "Your cleaning it up wrong".  How dare he!!!!

I responded, "and how would you clean it up Mr. KNow-It-All ?" (the name calling was only inside my head).

"A squeegee and a dust pan".  Here is where I rolled my eyes.

Then I realized that yeah, that would probably work.

It did.  I found the squeegee attachment for our home steamer and used that to scoop up the lake of goo.  When my husband came home, he helped move the washer and dryer and even helped scoop up goo.  We had it cleaned up in about 20 minutes.

Then, my husband pointed out that here is the difference between me and him.  If he had been responsible for this mess, he would have gotten yelled at.  I am not proud of this, but I will admit that he is probably right.  Whereas, he was totally nonplussed by my accident. I choose not to mention the fact that I clean up messes much better than he does.

I now have a squeaky clean floor and the air in my laundry room is no longer blue.

LESSON LEARNED:  To clean up spilled laundry detergent or any kind of substance with a higher viscosity, use a squeegee and a dust pan.

Oh and Lesson #2 is don't put a bottle of laundary detergent on top of a washing machine in case, like mine, it becomes possessed.