Shocking, But True!

I received a jolt Monday evening when I entered the Thevictorian palace. A shock as strong as smelling salts. But it was not salt I was smelling.

“Pony!” What’s that smell? It’s like CLEANER!”

“I know! I smelled it too!”

“I can’t imagine what that would be. Your dad went in late to work because he had a doctor’s appointment. But it doesn’t look like he cleaned the kitchen. What IS that?”

“I don’t know. But it smells clean.”

“Yeah. So unlike our house. The sink hasn’t been scrubbed. What can that be? Go check the bathrooms. Maybe he decided to pour some Lysol in the toilets.”

“I just went in mine. It wasn’t that. I’ll check yours.”

I put away my school stuff and tried to place that smell.

“Hey, Mom! It WAS your bathroom. But I can’t tell what he did. I think he cleaned the sink and the tub.”

“I KNOW WHAT IT IS! FLOOR CLEANER! He must have mopped the bathroom floor!”

“Yeah. He could have done that.”

Good thing I was revitalized by that strong clean smell, or I might have fainted dead away. My sweet baboo MOPPED THE BATHROOM FLOOR! And CLEANED THE SINK AND TUB! I’ve gotta get him more appointments. I even sent him a text thanking him for his trouble. He was working late because of the doctor’s appointment. As luck or fate would have it, I was asleep in the basement recliner when he came home, and he was asleep when I went to bed.

It was not until he had left the next morning, and I was putting the finishing touches on the raving beauty that is Val, that I noticed something different about my toothbrush. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. There it lay, as it lays every morning, on the back of the toothbrush holder. Let the record show that Val’s toothbrush, as all toothbrushes in the Thevictorian household, are too rotund to fit into the holes that hold normal-BMI toothbrushes. Also let the record show that there are three toothbrushes on our holder, even though only two of us use that bathroom. Somewhere down the line, somebody got out a new toothbrush without discarding the old. Of course it wasn’t me.

Here’s the thing. I can’t remember which color toothbrush I had been using. After all, I just had to reach for it, and it was there. No need to pay attention. So when I grabbed the one from my special place, I momentarily was discombobulated. Was my toothbrush blue? Or was it red? I KNEW it wasn't orange. I hate orange like Lou Grant hates spunk. Here was a blue/green one from my toothbrush location. Yet the bristles looked all flayed and frayed at the end. I was already in mid-brush when the thought hit me that it might be HICK’s toothbrush in my mouth. THE HORROR! Like when Lucy van Pelt realized that she had suddenly come down with a case of dog germs.

I yanked open the drawer and grabbed a new toothbrush. A tasteful two-toned gray fellow. I tossed that blue one in the wastebasket. I hope it had not been swimming in the toilet after an errant elbow from Hick. That would be a clever trick, though, with the toilet being about ten feet from the sink. What if Hick had really been in the cleanliness mode, and used it to scrub the tile? Or the base of the toilet! Icky poo!

Last night, I asked Hick if he had moved the toothbrushes. “Well, I moved them to clean the holder.”

“Did you rearrange the order?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, I don’t want to be brushing my teeth with YOUR toothbrush!”

“You know I always brush mine in the shower. My toothbrush is on top of the shower door.”

“Okay. I guess it was mine. But it looked old and worn.”

“I don’t know what you do. Mine is on the shower.”

Uh huh. I know he has used my toothpaste on the sink in the last several months. I doubt the carried his toothbrush from the shower.

I need to go throw away those other two toothbrushes on the holder. Just in case.