Despite many years of female training and indoctrination, I still clean like a man, and it occurs to me — because of course I was not thinking about my actual tasks as I was doing them — this afternoon's assignment may provide some illumination of how we got into Iraq and why we are doomed to stay there.
The assignment was to clean the kitchen and the adjoining dining nook/office area. I am quite familiar with all the component tasks and required implements, having accepted kitchen cleaning in a years-old negotiated settlement that enabled me to escape the quagmire of laundry. I generally do not shirk this duty; in fact, I am proud of quality kitchen policing.
However, I am still a man, which means I am:
- Prone to distraction. I am writing this with the job half-finished.
- Capable of declaring a half-finished job complete or promising to finish it tomorrow.
- Likely to employ unconventional tactics. We will get to that in a minute.
Today's mission included cleaning the maple floors, which feature several throw rugs that need to be shaken out. Laundering these rugs is outside my obligations under the agreement, but under the chair in my adjacent office is another rug that does not fall under the accord. It is a vaguely ethnic Pier One sale rug of undetermined age that followed me home after my company moved from wooden floors to carpeted office space.
It has been shaken, but otherwise never stirred.
On this beautiful Sunday afternoon, I decided this was the day to give it more than a good beating. But how to clean it? The tag warning against certain cleaning practices was clipped off so I could use either side of the rug. It was a bit too big and stiff to go in the washing machine. Dry cleaning was likely to cost more than the rug did — not to mention the looks at the cleaner's that would clearly say "why would you want to do this?"
So naturally, I went looking for the nozzle to the front hose. I am now able to offer a few tips.
I do not know what the Marine Purity™ means on the bottle of Ultra Palmolive with OxyClean Plus dish washing liquid, but I figured it might indicate its suitability for swabbing decks, so why not rugs? I do know that if you apply Marine Purity™ Ultra Palmolive with OxyClean Plus directly to the rug before spraying it down and you think you have been judicious, you have used too much.
On a September afternoon, repeatedly spraying the two sides of a rug on the lawn is much more pleasant work than going into the basement, wrestling a rug into the washing machine and then walking away and hoping for the best. It may even be more effective, for all I know. It is not, however, quicker.
There was no way to measure how much water was required to flush out all that Marine Purity™ Ultra Palmolive with OxyClean Plus from the rug and the lawn, but I am pretty sure it was more than a washing machine would've required. I'm not prepared yet to say I wasted the water, until I know for sure we won't have a crop of wild rice or cranberries come up in the front yard later this fall.
Nor am I going to say it was a waste of time. The rug is still drying, so the jury is out on the cleansing part of the mission, but I got a post out of it, and you now have a deeper understanding of how we got into Iraq.
As for the rest of the kitchen, in a time of limited resources, now is not the time to seek blame. Let us instead focus on priorities.
