Dirty Work

There's a tiny clause in my rental agreement that states something to the effect of, "Tenant is responsible for cleaning the bathroom on a biweekly basis."

I'm about two weeks too late. In fact, I'm often tardy when it comes to this particular household chore. Consider the following: there are two men living in the same apartment, both of whom make regular use of the bathroom, and both of whom are equally as responsible for dirtying it up. One of us owns an electric clipper which he regularly uses to trim his own hair, thus scattering little hair clippings all about the tiny lavatory. One of us has one o' dem new-fangled eee - lec- tronic toothbrushin' thingamajiggers that, while doing a wonderful job on one's teeth, also make one prone to... well... drip, shall we say, and cause mirror splatter. Both of us are fairly physically active and work out on a regular basis - that is, when one of us hasn't wrenched his back (my fault - was being stupid at the gym) or gotten some mysterious calf or knee injury (roommate is a marathoner/triathlete/six million dollar man with a sinus problem - comes with the territory) and we use the shower often enough. Shall I move on to our various toilet habits?

O.K. Well, one of us eats...

Actually, never mind. You get the point. Suffice to say, you wouldn't be in any hurry to clean my bathroom either, obscure lease clause or no.

(Note: And yes, while it IS an obscure clause, you must also remember that my landlord is also my roommate, as mentioned in the previous post. He has to live here too, hence the "cleaning clause." It's not nearly as dictatorial as it sounds. The lease also states that he's responsible for cleaning the kitchen. I'm not playing Little Orphan Annie here and having to scrub everything in sight. So yeah, I'm a bad tenant for not living up to the letter of the law and cleaning the bathroom every two weeks. So far, Marty has yet to throw me out on my ear, although he's well within his rights to do so - for that, and various other indiscretions. See? He's, like, wicked reasonable.)

But "clean" is what it specifically states in the lease, and "clean" is what I shall do. Yes indeed, tomorrow is bathroom cleanup day. Yuck. But, much like television violence, you tend to get desensitized to it after awhile. Having been the sole bathroom cleaner upper for the past 3 1/2 years now, I've got the ritual down pat. I don't even bother to wear one of those surgical mask thingies... Nope - it's easy. You can even do it in your own home. Just follow the instructions below:

1. Swiffer the bathroom floor, picking up all loose hair and other nasties. Swiffers rule the school. They pick up everything. Sometimes too well. Anyway, it's important to do this first, before you get the floor all wet from your cleaning. Otherwise, you get wet dust on a bathroom floor that's impossible to pick up and it just sticks there and looks like wet dog hair and you don't want to pick it up, but you have to and it almost makes you want to vomit because you know what's really in there and you think about getting rubber gloves, but you're not sure where they are so you wrap up about twenty paper towels and just sort of gently pick up the yuck and hold it away from you as you run for the trash can. THAT is why you Swiffer the dry floor first, mon frere.
   
2. Spray mildew remover on the shower tiles and let sit for 5-10 minutes. During this time feel free to surf the Internet, trade some stocks, catch up on some OPS statistics, maybe make some soup... whatever. This is YOUR time, friend. Enjoy it. Once time has elapsed, scrub grout if necessary, or just rinse off with water and sponge.
   
3. Spray soam scum remover inside the tub coating entire surface. Again, let sit for 5-10 minutes before scrubbing with a heavy duty sponge. Keep scrubbing until arm falls off or eyes go blind - whichever comes first. If the suds turn grey and vomit brown, you know you're a top notch tub scrubber. Give yourself a pat on the back. Run the shower and rinse away all the suds.
4. Spray that Scrubbing Bubbles stuff in the tub, again coating the entire surface. Sing along to Rhapsody in Blue, which is surely running through your head as you envision cartoon bubbles scrubbing your tub clean and flinging their way down the drain, just like in the commercial. Again, briefly run the shower and rinse away the suds - after scrubbing, of course. The bubbles themselves are union and will either take a designated smoke break after two minutes or stop working altogether and dare you to take disciplinary action so's they can get both the shop steward and a nice fat lawsuit dumped on yo ass.
   
5. We're done with the tub/shower. Smile the big smile, because you've surely fought the good fight. Greg? Peter? Bobby? What do you say we move on to the toilet? Sure thing, Dad.
6. Now, you have to be careful here because the toilet is a most unsanitary place. While a relatively easy device to clean, it can cause serious harm if done improperly. You'd be well advised to take a huge breath and hold it for as long as possible while performing this task. Unless of course you're suffering from a Vitamin B12 deficiency, in which case you can breathe away (Just a quick side note here for those of you that are confused. Vitamin B12 is produced naturally in one's intestinal tract as part of the digestion process, but it isn't absorbed by the body during that time. In order to make use of THAT B12, you'd have to consume it again. NOOOO thank you, you say, right? Not so fast. You know where one of the biggest sources of B12 comes from for many people? That's right. Improper hand washing. Scrub up.) Anyway, do this one like you did the tub. Spray the scrubbing bubbles all over the outside of the toilet, let shit... um, I mean, sit.., and then wipe off. Then - very important - spray toilet bowl cleaner (and only toilet bowl cleaner - Ajax, while it does the job on the first go-round doesn't keep it clean for flushes to come) under the rim and let it slink down into the toilet water, covering the inside of the bowl. Let shit.. er, sit then scrub the hell out of it using a toilet brush. Flush. Twice if necessary (good advice for any situation.) Put one of those solid toilet bowl bleach cake thingies in the tank so it can further deodorize your toilet bowl with every flush! Oh, and don't use the blue kind. That's like so 80's. Way passé. This lavatory is in your home, not an aircraft. Honestly...
7. Sink time! Luckily, this one's easy. Scrubbing bubbles again. You know the drill. Good for the whole house. It cleans and disinfects. Smells vile. Blah, blah, blah. Make sure you get the aforementioned dried toothpaste drip too.
8. Mop the floor. Make sure to get all the little bits of dried blood, dirty footprints, etc..
   
9. Hey yo, one last thing. Spray some o' dat Windex on the muthafuckin' mirror. Hell yeah. Then dry it up with a paper towel. Yeeeah boy!
   

Follow all these steps and voila! You now have an immaculately clean bathroom, just waiting to be soiled once again. If you want extra credit, disinfect the door handles and empty the trash. In fact, screw the extra credit and just do it. You'll thank me later.

*sigh*

I can't believe I just wrote a post about cleaning my bathroom. And I'm sure you're thinking, "What the hell? Is he in trouble?" What can I tell you? It was high time for a post and, as is abundantly clear, I haven't been getting out much lately. Just seemed like the natural thing to do. All I can say is, be thankful there are no clauses in my lease that say, "Tenant will do his laundry every week making sure to separate whites from darks." In fact, just be thankful I'm ending this post now, won't you? I've done enough damage for one day. As for you, I don't know... check back tomorrow, maybe. I might be more interesting then. Or, go take a shower.