If You Give a Val a Cleanser...

Sunday afternoon, I had the most scathingly brilliant idea. To clean my clean sink. The sink on the right side of my double sink combo, where I have the dish drainer, and put the clean dishes. The clean sink wasn't looking so clean. We have hard water, and get a limestone scale deposit if water sits or drips. I rarely run water down the clean sink, but the dishes drip it, and sometimes the turn on/off lever leaks a little down that side. The scale part was looking rough, and like it was starting to discolor. So I went looking for something heavy-duty to use, because Comet doesn't scrub off the scale.

I found a bottle of Clorox Cleaner and Bleach in the laundry room. That seems like an odd name, but I'm no marketing genius. I brought the bottle out, pulled my glasses down off my head, and grabbed the little magnifying glass I used to check for penny dates. The instructions on that cleaner's plastic-wrapped bottle were in very tiny font.

Well! Good thing I read it! According to the bottle, I needed to wear a hazmat suit, a bullet-proof vest, and reach my arms out of holes in a lead shield! Oh, and make sure I wore a respirator, and had poison control and a plastic surgeon on speed dial. And, if I'd ever had a breathing problem, or heart issues, I should absolutely not use this product.

Since I wasn't supposed to let it touch my skin, I got out a pack of rubber gloves. Even though the cleaner said not to let it touch rubber! For ventilation, I did not want to raise the mini blinds and open the three kitchen windows, which would involve moving four chairs out of the way, and leaning over the table. I figured I could prop open the kitchen door, and then turn on the whole-house exhaust fan that is located in the ceiling of the laundry room adjacent to the kitchen. I even used a cardboard box about 10 inches wide to prop the kitchen door open, knowing that when the exhaust fan whooshed on, it would pull the door closed.

I put my glasses back up on my head so as not to trip on my own feet using the bifocals as I walked to the laundry room. I pulled on the chain hanging between the washer and dryer, to activate the exhaust fan. Nope. Not budging! What in the NOT-HEAVEN? I tilted my head back to see if something was caught on the louvers that should have opened to start the exhaust fan. 

Welp! Tilting my head back sent my glasses to the cold hard gray ceramic tile of the laundry room floor. I heard two pieces skitter. That's not a good thing. Also, I couldn't find those pieces! I wasn't wearing my glasses, heh, heh! Nah. That wasn't it. I can see pennies without them. But the midnight blue metallic color of my glasses frames kind of blended with the gray of the tile. And the lens that had popped out was see-through, because a lens would be useless if it wasn't.

By leaning my head, and creeping softly by scooting my Crocs, I found an angle that allowed me to spot both glasses and lens. I got the lens popped back in. Gave up on trying to start the exhaust fan. Went back to the sink and put on my yellow rubber gloves. Spritzed the Clorox Cleaner and Bleach into the clean sink. Let it sit the recommended 30 seconds. Then started scrubbing. Parts of the scale scrubbed off. Since I had not fainted from lack of oxygen, I gave it another spritz. Scrubbed. Then did a third round. Most of the scale was removed. Not all. But I was ready to call it a day and go to town.

As I rinsed off the yellow rubber gloves (whose package said they could be washed and re-used), I noticed a buzzy/gurgling sound. I've been having trouble with my washing sink's drain. I've told Hick, but you know he can only do work for other people, and not at home. I've told him that it seems like a clog down in the curvy pipe under the sink, because when I run the water to get it hot enough for dishwashing, after a while it will start to back up. Oh, and when I let out the dishwater, some of it comes up in the clean sink drain. Hick says that sounds like an air bubble. NOT TO ME! But I'm no free-lance plumber who rolls around in other people's poop under their house to put in a 45 degree angle pipe...

Anyhoo... as I heard this buzzy/gurgling sound, I thought maybe those strong chemicals in the Clorox Cleaner and Bleach might be eating through a clog, since I'd rinsed some down the drain of the clean sink. I tilted my head to listen, and was shocked to learn that the noise was NOT coming from the drain! It was coming from the WINDOWS. 

While the door was propped open for ventilation, FIVE stinging critters had come inside, and were now flinging themselves against the window panes, trying to get back out. Idiots! If they wanted out, why had they come in? They might have been wasps, but had shorter bodies, like a hornet, but without striped butt-ends. Whatever they were, they were not happy. 

I picked up my flyswatter, but didn't have a clear shot at a clean kill through those mini blinds. There were two critters at each window, but only one at the window behind my computing chair. If I tried to raise the blinds to swat them, one was sure to get away at each window before I could smash them.

Lucky for me, there was a can of RAID Wasp and Hornet Spray sitting on the end of the kitchen counter by the door. It has been there against the wall since we had our yearly ant invasion several months ago. I grabbed it and gave a squirt through the mini blinds at the first window. Aha! Got 'im! The second critter at that window had no idea what was coming for him. After four more squirts, all five of those would-be stingers were writhing in their death throes on the little ledge of the window frame where the turny lock thingies are.

I went out on the porch to see if we had wasps on a nest above the door, as we've had years past. But there were only three desiccated nests, looking like they'd been long abandoned. I sprayed the one directly above the kitchen door anyway, stepping back to avoid the dripping. Scarlett and Jack came running, thinking a treat would be forthcoming. Nope. They got a kind word, and that was all. Not even a pat from my as-yet unwashed post-gloved hands.

After that, I figured it was safe to remove the five corpses on the windowsills, with some Puffs With Lotion for shrouds. After giving them a satisfying CRUNCH, I put them in the wastebasket.

Next time I get the urge to clean the clean sink, I'm going to sit down and think it through.