Right Tools for the Job

Last night's television viewing was a representation of extremes. Nothing else was on when I was feeding Natasha so I ended up watching Trading Spouses. I was excited to find a mother on there from Minnesota. I thought surely she would be the reasonable one. Interestingly, Trading Spouces was recruiting at the Mall of America one weekend when I was there. I didn't sign up, but now that I have two little babies it could have made for an interesting experience for the mother in my place.

Sadly, the Minnesota mother was extremely obsessive about cleanliness and order. And she was a major bitch, to boot. The house she was traded to was pretty dirty, but the family seemed extremely nice. I wish she could have lightened up a bit. Minnesota mom started each day with lists. Vacuumed her floors twice daily and nothing was ever out of place. Exactly the kind of person that would have a heart attack were she to visit my house.

Later that evening, DH stumbled onto a new series called "World's Dirtiest Jobs" or something like that. If you have not seen this show (or even if you have), I do not recommend watching it. Basically they follow people around who spend their day cleaning up poop. People poop. Bird poop. Dog poop. If it poops, someone cleans it up and WDJ will follow them around with cameras.

It occurred to me that WDJ could do an episode on a stay-at-home mom with two kids in diapers, and a dog that poops like a buffalo. My day really is all about cleaning up poop (and pee, and spitup, read my post on Blood, Sweat, and Tears).

After a night watching tv like that it's no wonder I woke up inspired to clean. Inspired, but not very motivated. Looking around a house where the dishes need to be done, 2 days of laundry waiting to be sorted through, trash to be taken out, floors cleaned, crayon on the walls, it's really hard to get motivated. I don't care how much coffee you drink. The only time I can generally get motivated to clean the house is when there is an alternate, more boring task waiting to be done and I can simultaneously clean and practice the art of avoidance.

I decided to go ahead and try to tackle the crayon on the wall first. I had a box of unopened Mr. Clean Magic Erasers waiting for me. Let me tell ya, those things actually work! I did manage to get a little too into the job actually rubbing for so long and hard that I managed to remove some paint. I tend to go crazy on jobs that involve elbow grease. Same with weeding. I will neglect my garden for weeks at a time only to get started one night and weed like a maniac until midnight not even stopping to think about what I'm doing or stepping back for a moment to make sure I'm not getting out of control. I'll run into the house from exhaustion only to find the 80 foot pile of weeds the next morning wondering what the hell I was thinking the night before.

I have to say, I was hesitant to try the magic erasers. I felt like it was a gimmick, just one more thing the new product development and marketing team at 3M could dream up to extract money from bored stay-at-home moms and obsessed Minnesota Moms who appear on Trading Spouces. But they win. I'll keep buying them at $90.00 a sponge, or whatever I paid.

Now that I have succumb to their marketing ploys and gave into the magic eraser I am afraid I might go even farther. Maybe the eraser is like some gateway drug for cleaning products. I need to move into harder things like disposable toilet brushes and disposable dusting cloths just to get the same fix.

And when did EVERYTHING start becoming disposable? When I grew up, your toilet brush sat next to the toilet. Granted, you stayed as far away as possible from it as you could, but it did the trick. So did the cloth diaper and furniture spray you used to dust. Ditto the regular old rag and baking soda to clean your tub. Today, there isn't a cleaning product you can dream up that doesn't come in a dispense-one-at-a-time tub and can be thrown away.

Here's a glimpse of a few products. I'm sure each of you owns at least TWO items listed here.

The beloved eraser. Capable of destroying pen marks, pencil marks, and even crayon markings.


Disposable duster. Although I'm not sure why you need a duster to be disposable.


Another one I don't completely get. You wash your tub with a disposable cloth at the end of a stick.



I'm giving in. The toilet brush is rather disgusting. The sponge at the end is disposable, of course. The stick, you get to keep.



And let us not forget Swiffer, who invented this whole genre of cleaning products.



Here's one I have never thought of. Disposable dish rags WITH dish soap!


And here's one you can't get yet! Quick! Put your deposit down and be the first on your block to have one!


I can't decide if I love or hate this new disposability. Does the thrifty, environmental side prevail and I can continue to make do with an old rag, or does the side obsessed with cleanliness (we've all seen the Dateline special where they tell you how many bazillion kinds of bacteria live in your kitchen sponge) prevail?

I guess for me, the answer is neither. The lazy mom who hates cleaning and has a toddler that can mess things up faster than she can clean them is usually the one that wins. Maybe I'll track that Minnesota Mom from Trading Spouces down and invite her over. An obsessive compulsive like that couldn't NOT clean, right? I just hope she can remember which sticks go to which cleaning products!